


































^ r ® 

•I xO'^^ 






.0 o 



<» « 


- V 


'^'b ' ‘ ^ ' A ^ V 1 « « '^’b ^ ^ c -p "''b 




C*. * » o* 

*>*'»/ 

*' * ^V h, c % ,^^'' 

. s <0 

*" .0> 

' ■>:^ a'; 

a O 0 » 






'^ « 






<1*^* 


^ C' v' 


d 


/ 


5<i 

]» 

^ o 


► y A < O ' 

aV c 0 " « « '^b 


</> 

‘i'^% °% 






^ « * S . . <*^ ' 0 <, V ^ '\ 

> < B ^ ^ a\ , 0 N 0 



. '°.,. ■*.!'*■ x'!’'' 

o^ ^ / 'c- \- v" 

X ^ o ^ ^ A. 

‘ "/l ^ ^r. V\- 

~ V ^v^•'^ lA^ ® X? V 

gsN\Wb^/.^Z . ^ *v 

V w><a X'’l 




^ »' 

0 r^* A- 

» , ,o’ ' « ' 

- '■">*"= b- •• 

<• ■x'^-^ .<f>'-^.p -^®/- .•x^'^ 

O v - -i ^ ^ 

/-• > . d "A * /> '•w 


O 9 V 


. .0‘ N* ^ 


\ 


✓ 

y» 

« 

•A 



aN t, 0 C ^ '^Q ■* * q'> ^ <« ^ ' ' 

.x .' ^ X -'' 


'^ \ - i V 

> s" V ^/y^- 



o 0 





O' 

. .n ’'"»’> ' ^\^ S - . » N 

,0' ^ f' \* 


<w 







'O , A ^ 


.N - ^ 


\ 'J.* ^ ^ Oi-’ 

8 t A ■* s -» «■ 7- ^ 'J V O ^ 

.. . , v" - jttp4^' - .x^^ 

^b/b, b ,sx^‘ j*” 

toMar.iSr^L^'^ _ Ck ^ ^ f/^ r^ .^'t5 



✓ 


k.'' - ’■ V, » 

‘ 0 &'° 


y 





\V’ ''<P 

- ov ^ ^ ^ 

'' ' ''^ *0 ^ 0 ♦ *• "^ .\^ n N C ^7' ^ ^ t « 

* V 1 « « <ji .v},' c ° ^ « 'o 

C> v' ^jr??r^ ^ 'P S^ cC^Xo. ^ 

- N X s^' =' ^:^^ ' -oo' 

. . . » : .0 c> . * X V 

k ^ -V .v// jr ^ .C.' * 

o' a-"' X 6 ^ '^o '' 7 ^ o' v\^' 

v-O ^ ^ V 0 N.'" ^ 8 1 ' O . 

. « V. .^x'- - ^ V . \ ^ 


.s X 


9 « 




'4 C. ^ ^1 * 4 \V '/> ^ 

% ^ -\^ ■ 
r cV - -4 ^ 


X -V 

-o 



•o C^ ^ 

* / O « \ ■* \'^ ’^ '*'' / T"* s' I * “O ^ 0 » ' 

~ U«K \ VI^ * 6 *^ ^ \'n#, 

..> ,''*♦ vV c“ <S- ,- 0 - s’ X -f*. 

-i- M^yTV^ * >'^ aX s. ' c - jS^W'/''-^^ ' ^yp, a. 

.■.//v.x= ^ ^'^v'- aU ^ ^/' ‘i^ V ^ 

^ VA#-- i • - C -«s£^ I 1 '*»-iS *> 




^ ^ 0 s 0 


// 


X ' ‘ 

o’^ ^ s • 0 , c- 



: ^ 


0 o 


't * 



O ' '• 


^ -f' 

^ , _ 

» iM * 0 '' , * , "s ^ 

O >> S^'O ^O^X v' aKg ' 1 * ^ 

•o “o ^ % X' ’ '\^ ■" 

-oo' .'^0 -r^: 

i-, *"‘^>^*'. 0 ^ '^6 ‘■» 

0 s O ^ -w ^ *lr 


o - ^ O.'f* 'a ’ -'J ^* 1 '’ \V ,,• 

.V ■>'^^0 :gm:^ %. 0 ' 


o 


= X cV 


" ''x 

cP'o ..X’ 


\'g> . .V ',y;^^^ a' 

* A O “^ / V s '0 

O * S ^ . \ ' . >. / '/* ^ ^ ^•N V 

-V c ^ O -C^‘ • ’ 

'A 4 '' 


t/- . , ,, 

<^%.. VOii 


1 B 


y'?^ ■ -f- 



I 


t 















k’’. 




w. 


jv 






> • 


'1 

fi!4 




♦ 


f I 


. r 


i 


1 








I 



II 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


^cn,uX. a 


J . 

»/>l^ A--l^ 

C\y^f^ ^C-t^ 

c^*i L4^ L^ U^-U^C^ 




Xorcirs ifntcrnationat Series, 1Ro. 120 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS 


A NOVEL 


BY 



BERTHA THOMAS 

w 

AUTHOR OF 

“THE KILBURNS,” “THE LOVE OF A LADY,’’ “THE SLOANE SQUARE 
SCANDAL,’ ETC , ETC. 


^uthoriied Edition 


, f Right 
slOV -•'>qn 

2 


NEW YORK 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 

SUCCESSORS TO 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

142 TO 150 WORTH STREET 


Copyright, 1890, 

BY 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


PROLOGUE. 


I. 

The story goes, that four good authorities in London 
society were asked to write down the name of the most 
influential personage in this country, according to their 
several opinions, next to the head of the Government at 
that time. All four named Austin Day. 

Yet he has done nothing that will leave a monument 
behind him. Brilliant talents, social distinction, unerring 
taste and judgment, and many of the personal qualities of 
a leader meet in him, but have by him been mainly 
applied to influencing the leaders themselves. Why had 
he never done any great thing? Some said he was too 
fastidious ; some that he split up his energies ; some that 
he was superficial ; some found the cause in a romantic 
but scandalous page of his early history ; others in his 
subsequent marriage with a lady of good position and 
means, and the personification of social propriety, but 
without the slightest pretension to ^hare his intellectual 
life. 

Austin Day is a widower, and close upon fifty ; he will 
certainly never do any great thing now. Nothing 
greater than to have won and kept the position of the 
crack critic of his time ; an oracle whose utterances are 
final to aspirants in art or letters, and make adepts trem- 
ble before them. Fc>x Diei^ Vox Dei, jokers say. Thanks 


4 


PROLOGUE, 


to his name and fame as the best of all good judges, a 
modern king-maker. For the world of to-day has its new 
kings — new commanders of those high honors and favors 
that are the summit of mere human ambition. Once the 
first prize was for the successful soldier. Next for the 
successful statesman. To-day is the day of the successful 
artist : the makers of the songs, the music, the pictures, 
the books that the world loves best. Kings by divine 
right these, and we own it now. Not in the half-hearted 
old fashion, that starved them living and crowned them 
dead ; but with frank, full, and material acknowledgment. 

Over the host of rising competitors for such eminence, 
Austin Day’s benign, fatherlike influence extends. He 
can check bumptious genius, guide groping inexperience to 
the light, encourage, direct, support, set down, and he 
never makes an ineffectual effort. Revered by young 
people, adored by ladies of all ages and degrees, beloved 
in his home, courted by his superiors, worshiped by his 
inferiors, here and abroad ; if his talents have been sunk, 
so to speak, in an annuity of fame — fame that must perish 
with him — it is yielding him in his lifetime the fullest 
profits of success. 

Impossible to pass him over in any company. No face 
in London is better known. Let Austin Day enter concert 
hall, drawing-room, or theatre, every glance will fasten 
awhile on that remarkable, seer-like head, with its thinned 
locks of iron-grey hair soft and wavy as a woman’s ; fore- 
head admirably developed ; alert, deep-set, magnetic- 
looking grey eyes and close-shaven mouth ; a countenance 
all life and intelligence, with youthful sprightliness enough 
to set up the languid visages of any dozen of his juniors. 
His popularity follows him about like his shadow, all over 
the continent, where his autograph is punctually purloined 
from the Visitors’ book as surely as he enters it there. 
He cannot escape from this notoriety, not even at Mera, 
a quiet Alpine nook, where in the summer of 187 — he 
and his daughter, whilst on a holiday tour, were detained 
'many days by a break in the weather. 

A pleasant place of detention, Mera. A mountain 
hamlet on the borderland where Italy and Switzerland 
meet and kiss ; glaciers and snow-peaks tower overhead, 
and Spanish chestnut woods clothe the slopes at your 
feet. The hotel, a strong-walled old hill-mansion of a 


PROLOGUE, 


5 


decayed noble family, presented a marked contrast to the 
lath and plaster palaces, the splendid casual wards, run 
up for man’s accommodation in the Oberland and the 
Engadine. Imagine, rather, a visit to a deserted country 
house, with oak-panelled bedrooms and quaint antique 
furniture ; the landings on the stone staircase adorned with 
suits of plate armour, family portraits, and scutcheons ; 
and a large dining room with vaulted roof, vast fire- 
place, and ancestral cupboards. Rough, solid, distin- 
guished in architecture, characteristic and interesting in its 
appointments, the house had nothing of the hotel about it 
but the name. 

No wonder that Antonelli, the manager, had his rooms 
full ; no wonder that the unconventional surroundings 
paved the way for easy sociable relations among the com- 
pany. He knew there was a celebrity among them, 
having remarked how each newcomer, who perused the 
Travellers’ book, would always stop to point out to his 
companion the name, 

Austin Day, 

and underneath, in a distinctly feminine hand, distinctive 
too, 

Marcia Day. 

A certain deference was shown to father and daughter. 
Meals were waited for them, the head places at the table 
assigned to them, and Austin Day led the conversation. 
Once, when it had rained since noon, their appearance at 
the six o’clock table d'hote was looked forward to as a 
grateful piece of excitement, the event of the day. Long 
before the hour the guests began dropping into the dining- 
hall, impatient for the coming break in the tedium. The 
gong sounds, two minutes’ suspense, then Antonelli throws 
open the door, and Austin Day enters with his daughter. 
He, slightly bent, but nervously quick and active in his 
movements, his countenance full of pleasant susceptibility ; 
she, tall, slim, and fair, a calmer picture, but in feature 
the feminine counterpart of her parent. Is she hand- 
some ? On the whole, yes. The question has been under 
discussion this afternoon, and every one, before sitting 
down to table, looks at her for confirmation in the par- 
ticular opinion he or she has expressed. 


6 


PROLOGUE. 


Marcia, though only two-and-twenty, appeared used to 
be well stared at. No princess born could be more free 
from the self-conscious vanity of those who have had to 
assert or create their claim to public notice. Her manner, 
unlike her genial father’s, did betray some indifference to 
the motley party who had been her fellow-prisoners here 
for the last week : some colorless English and German 
middle-class families ; a middle-aged painter of mediocre 
landscapes; Mrs. Fanshawe, the arch-popular comic 
actress ; and her husband, himself an actor of merit. So 
little d priori interest did Austin Day’s daughter feel in 
the company, that she never noticed that it included two 
new arrivals. Her father’s ever-reconnoitring eye had 
singled them out at once. Two brothers — intrepid young 
Britons, of course. Who else would tempt Providence 
by mountaineering in weather still convulsed by recent 
storms ? Addressing himself to the one nearest him, a 
well-grown, ruddy, heavy, well-intentioned looking young 
Anglo-Saxon, Austin Day courteously inquired by what 
route they had reached Mera. 

Through the Plattenthal to Campo on Saturday, and 
over here to-day by the Alpetta pass,” he answered, grow- 
ing very red at having to lift up his voice before a tableful 
of strangers. 

The newcomers became interesting at once. Isolated 
though Mera’s mountain perch, rumor had reached it of 
the destruction, amounting to devastation, wrought by 
Sunday’s hurricane in the Plattenthal, on the other side of 
the Alpine range. 

“You were at Campo ? You witnessed the storm?” 
said several at once. 

“We saw a whole village wrecked by the gale, beaten 
to pieces like a ship in a squall.” 

It was the other brother speaking now. Marcia, 
hitherto an inattentive listener, had involuntarily looked 
up, struck by the speaker’s voice. 

It belonged to a young man of seemingly about five- 
and-twenty. A certain indefinite likeness, then still ap- 
parent, between the two brothers, served only to draw 
your attention to the extreme instance here presented of 
vvhat surprisingly wide deviations are possible from a 
single family type. A disparity of the kind that separates 
the greyhound from the mastiff made almost ludicrous the 
lingering resemblance it was presently to obliterate. 


PROLOGUE. 


7 


The elder, who had last spoken, was the younger-look- 
ing of the two. Simpler beings, like his brother, reach 
maturity earlier than the more complex organisms. His 
brown hair was darker, his complexion perceptibly paler, 
despite the same tanning process undergone, his figure 
less square and muscular, but suppler and better pro- 
portioned. The features were slightly aquiline, their 
marked individuality of cast and expression softened by a 
mobility in singular contrast to the rigid, rough, conserva- 
tive-looking countenance of his brother and neighbor, who 
resumed, bluff and shy : 

“ The hotel-keeper at Splugen warned us not to go on. 
We thought he merely wanted to detain our custom, and 
started off on Saturday for our five hours’ walk up the 
valley. The last bit was a stiff pull in the teeth of the 
wind.” 

Everybody was listening ; he was forced to speak on. 

“It was dark and blowing very hard when we reached 
Campo. There is no inn, but we were welcome, they told 
us, to the hospitality of the mountains.” 

“ Goats’ milk, sour bread, bad beds, and Bologna 
sausage,” put in Austin Day. 

They got us some sort of supper and a shakedown. 
Dead beat with our walk, we turned in, proposing to start 
in the morning at six, as soon as called.” 

“ Man proposes, murmured Austin Day.” 

The light irony of his manner disconcerted the narrator, 
who began to halt and to hesitate, glancing instinctively 
at his brother, who struck in fluently — 

“ Called we were, and before six, by a tremendous 
crash. Looking out, we saw that the roof of a chalet 
opposite, from which the stones had been dislodged by the 
hurricane, had been torn off and carried bodily away. 
The tempest since midnight had been rising, and a slight 
change in the wind now brought down the full force of its 
fury on Campo.” 

He spoke well ; his fortunate manner, which was as 
spontaneous as his brother’s awkwardness, would have 
secured attention for a less thrilling tale. 

“ Another, then another, chalet was half demolished 
before our eyes. Terrified people ran out, and narrowly 
missed getting their heads smashed by the roof-stones, 
sent spinning like bombs through the air. Indoors or out, 


8 


PROLOGUE. 


/ 


it was an even chance for the safety of your life and limbs. 
Later, this terrific outburst partly abated, and hoping to 
save a chalet, threatened, but not yet unroofed, some 
fellows mustered to try and replace the stones. But 
as fast as they climbed on the roof they were flung off 
again by the violence of a fresh squall.” 

“And he, who was lending a hand,” mumbled his 
brother, “nearly got a broken neck for his pains.” 

“ The gale now raged more fiercely than ever ; and 
worst of all was to have to look on at the battle, doing 
nothing, like a sheep, with the crash of falling timber on 
all sides. The windows of our own den were stove in, 
and the roof was momentarily expected to give way. 
With brief intermissions this lasted till nightfall, when, of 
the twenty chalets in the village, only two had escaped 
destruction. After dark the hurricane began to sink, and 
the villagers breathed again for their lives, but not for 
their property. Rain, violent, tropical-like rain, set in. 
The hay harvest, just carried, but exposed by the unroof- 
ing of the barns, and scattered by the wind, was drenched, 
the uncut corn spoilt, the grain beaten out. All night the 
deluge continued; the dilapidated houses no longer 
afforded any shelter, so the poor wretches sought it 
under heaps of straw and hay. Next morning the 
spectacle of desolation presented by Campo was com- 
plete. Homesteads, furniture, harvest, and forage de- 
stroyed ; the people, exhausted by exposure, contemplat- 
ing, with a sort of stony despair, the ruin that had come 
upon them in twenty -four hours.” 

“ How very painful ! ” said somebody, after a pause, 
speaking for all. 

“ Painful to witness, I can tell you, when you can give 
no help,” rejoined the young man. “ All Monday we 
were detained, the footpaths being unsafe to attempt. 
This morning we started at daybreak, to be overtaken by 
the rain near the summit of the pass. We took refuge in 
a cow-shed till, towards afternoon, it cleared, and we got 
down to Mera without further adventure.” 

The distressing tale had perversely raised the spirits of 
the company. Pity for the unhappy villages, beggared 
and evicted, in a single round of the clock, was merged in 
natural complacency at so unhoped-for lively a finish to 
the dull day. Conversation never flagged, from soup to 


PROLOGUE, 


9 


dessert. And when the dinner-party dispersed, Austin 
Day and two or three more stayed behind, to discuss 
again the calamity at Campo over a fresh bottle of Valtel- 
line wine. 

The evening was fine, the sunset of superb, wild, stormy 
magnificence. Marcia strolled out into the stone-walled, 
convent-like garden lying behind the house, with the 
sheltering mountain-wall rising directly opposite, clothed 
with low alder woods and a sprinkling of dwarf firs above, 
marking the limit of the zone of trees ; and smooth grass 
pastures higher up, whose rising mounds hide the rocky 
deserts and snow-fields in the far distance. Winter lies 
that way, whilst summer is here in the garden, under 
spreading limes, cypress-like poplars, and tall fruit-trees — 
cherry, plum, and medlar. The ladies went sauntering up 
and down the grass-grown gravel paths, Marcia joining 
them awhile out of mechanical courtesy \ then she seated 
herself apart at a garden table, as if to write or read. 

The very garden tables at Mera have an original 
character. Marcia’s, consisting of an immense circular 
slab of stone, resting on a short upright block, might have 
been a Druidical altar and she its young priestess. Her 
build, though slim, was strong ; her hands and feet, like her 
cast of feature, slender and shapely rather than small ; her 
amber-colored hair, plentiful and straight, was twined in 
plain fashion round her head, and the drapery of her light 
summer dress almost severe in its simplicity. The com- 
plete absence of all coquetry, of all attempt at piquant 
effect in her person and manner, was restful and enticing. 
Susceptible young men, half afraid of feminine arts, and 
older men who were sick of them, alike turned to this still 
water for safety and repose. 

“ At last ! ” she said, when presently she saw her 
father approaching. “ I was coming to look for you.” 

“ We stayed on, talking about hurricanes,” he explained, 
as he took the chair by her side. “ What an evening ! 
What a sunset ! And what a barbarous law it is of 
Nature’s that she must tear everything in pieces before she 
can treat us to a really fine sight like this ! ” he added 
playfully, as he lit a fresh cigarette. 

“ Those poor people ! ” said Marcia gravely. “ Can 
nothing be done to make good their loss ? ” 

It was with just a shade of passing unconscious surprise. 


lO 


PROLOGUE, 


as though an overflow of compassion was not a matter of 
course from this quarter, that her father replied : 

“ Ay, and we are going to do it. Mera is as full as it 
can hold, and a big hotel down at Vicocastello is crammed. 
What should you say to some impromptu theatricals 
in the large hall over the way, where the Turnverem have 
their meetings? I say it would attract all the English 
from the Engadine to the Lake of Como. It was Fan- 
shawe who suggested it. I have spoken to Antonelli, 
who thinks we can have the room.” 

“ The Fanshawes cannot do much by themselves,” she 
objected. 

“ There are some amateurs here who will help them out. 
And they have turned up a comrade and acquaintance in 
one of those young fellows from Campo — Blake, their 
name is. The elder — the dark-haired one — is on the 
stage, it seems.” 

“ He, an actor ? ” Surprise and disappointment rang in 
her tone. 

“ An amateur, turned professional — for better or worse ! 
Fanshawe knows about him. He was educated at Eton 
and Cambridge, and intended for the bar, I think. But 
his family had money losses, and he took his own way. 
He has been playing for two years in the provinces under 
the name of Wilfrid Carroll. Fanshawe thinks he has 
talent.” 

“ What a pity to throw it away on that career, if he had 
the choice ! ” said the girl. 

“ Ah, there you are, child, with your old prejudice,” 
expostulated her father, smiling. 

“No prejudice,” pleaded Marcia, with animation. “ I 
like actors, when they are nice people, as I like lace, 
pretty jewelry, and P'rench confectionery ; but you can’t 
take them seriously, as men among men, now can you ? 
Look at Mr. Fanshawe, as vain and pettily jealous as I or 
any girl could be ! ” 

“ Oh, but Fanshawe is a born fool, fop, flirt, and cox- 
comb,” said Austin Day airily; “bound, anyway, to 
become the lump of affectation that he is.” 

Marcia laughed, but persisted : “ I call it the theatrical 
character, that belongs to the theatrical career. Doesn’t 
success there largely depend on qualities that may become 
a girl, like girls’ dress, but are just as ill-suited and con- 




PROLOGUE. 


II 


temptible for a man — an over-sensitive, vain, variable man, 
with no room in him left for the manlier side — that is your 
actor, except when he is acting.” 

“It may so happen, but I do not admit the necessity,” 
returned her father. “ A foolish and superficial man may 
become a good actor, but he would have been a better 
actor had he been wise and thorough. Properly speaking, 
his profession should elevate him. A successful actor 
wields a tremendous power, perfectly unique. He can 
amuse, instruct, inspire, enlighten his fellow creatures, 
from the king down to the shoeblack. An acted drama is 
to the printed work what the living Galatea was to the 
marble statue. When, as in England just now, the stage 
has temporarily fallen from its high estate, actors will 
suffer with it, and sink farther and farther from the ideal 
standard. But that stage heroes are wanting is our fault, 
no shame to Melpomene. Let but a Garrick show him- 
self — let him present us with worthy embodiments of 
Shakespeare’s great creations — Romeo, Macbeth, Othello 
— then tell me if the player’s calling is low and insignifi- 
cant, and its influence in the world a thing to be des- 
pised ! ” 

Austin Day, when talking (which he generally was), 
however trite the discourse — and nine-tenths of the most 
brilliant talkers’ discourse are trite of necessity — appeared 
at his best. The lines in his face vanished ; his eyes glist- 
ened ; he looked quite young, people said, though nothing, 
assuredly, could be less characteristic of youth, as we 
know it, then the unquenchable animation and enthu- 
siasm of this veteran lover of life. 

Whilst he was speaking, the figures of the two brothers, 
Robert and Wilfrid Carroll Blake, appeared on the hop- 
covered balcony, whence steps led down to the garden. 

“ Father,” Marcia conceded laughingly, “ I believe I am 
impossible to please ; but whose fault is that? Who is it 
that has spoilt me for other men, actors or not ? ” 

Austin Day looked at her fondly. Darkness was clos- 
ing in. The garden was deserted but for themselves and 
the two brothers, who, pacing up and down, kept passing 
within near view of Austin Day, where he sat with his fair 
daughter. 

Suddenly he remarked in an undertone ; 

“ What is it that young Carroll’s face reminds me of I 
caniiot think. It will bother me until I do.” 


i2 prologue. 

“ It has a look of the Del Sarto in the National Gallery,” 
Marcia responded low. 

“ The painter’s portrait by himself. That is it. Mar- 
cia, how quick you are 1 ” 


II. 

Three days later, Mera was in a stir. 

A dramatic entertainment for the relief of the sufferers 
at Campo had been projected, and its pecuniary success 
ensured in advance, in less than twenty-four hours. 

Austin Day went down to the Europa Hotel at Vicocastello 
with a sheaf of programmes in his pocket, which a young 
lady worshiper of his had spent the morning in writing 
out, and which his signature was to convert into so many 
admissions for the performance, the day after to-morrow. 
He told the story of the gale in his best manner to some 
forty English assembled at lunch, who scarcely waited to 
be asked to tender their ten francs apiece for a ticket. 
By the stage-coach that plies daily between Vicocastello 
and the Engadine he despatched playbills to a certain 
monster hotel, whence twenty people wrote at once to the 
Europa to engage rooms for Friday night. The proprietor 
had to quarter his superfluous guests on those large local 
inns of which every Italian village seems to contain several, 
doing nothing. He could have worshiped Austin Day, 
whose name proved a more powerful magnet than those of 
the actors themselves. Mrs. Fanshawe’s was perhaps 
almost too familiar, having been before the public for five- 
and- twenty years ; whilst Wilfrid Carroll’s was then as ■ 
unknown to fame as those of the assisting amateurs. j 

The preparations, rude but effective, were extemporised ! 
in a day. Rough Swiss dining-tables, fitted together at 
the back of the room, formed the stage. For curtain, 
lighting, and appointments the indulgence of the audience - 
was solicited. Two short pieces, one serious, one farcical, 
were selected, as happening to be fresh in the memory of 
the principal performers, and requiring no scenery at all. 

A morning’s rehearsal sufficed for coaching in their parts 
the docile amateurs, Mr. Robert Blake and Miss Daven- 
port Brown, a young lady overjoyed to act maid to Mrs. 


PROLOGUE. 


‘3 


Fanshawe as mistress, and mistress to her as maid, in the 
two small roles allotted her ; whilst her pretty little brother 
was pressed into the service for a child’s part of a sentence 
or two; Austin Day, as prompter, stage manager, and 
universal provider — of ideas — was invaluable ; his genial 
spirit smoothed the way miraculously, wherever he trod 
and led. 

“ Really, Marcia,” he observed, when, after the final 
rehearsal, he joined her in her garden retreat, “ I must 
say I am uncommonly struck by something in the acting 
of that young Carroll.” 

“ Yes,” said Marcia indifferently, without raising her 
eyes from her book. 

“ Fanshawe, who had him in his provincial company at 
Liverpool, and put him into this part once on an emergency, 
told me it was the best thing he had seen for a long time. 
I have a mind to try and gel him for our Shakespeare 
Memorial performances in November. I think too he is 
one of the right sort ” 

He had more on his lips, but Marcia remained perversely 
unresponsive. Well, Austin Day concluded he must have 
been mistaken in supposing that his daughter, like himself, 
had been more than commonly attracted by the interesting 
personality of the new comer. 

In point of fact, it was just on this account that she would 
fain have shut her ears to her father’s gushing encomiums. 
She — like, nay admire a man whose abilities found their 
rightful sphere in the mummer’s art she had always des- 
pised? Marcia was ambitious, both for herself and the 
objects of her liking. For the last two days she had been 
struggling with the fancy to perceive in this obscure follower 
of Thespis’s art a rare force of intelligence, in a still 
rarer conjunction with great refinement of mind, subtle 
evidences of a superior nature towards which hers felt drawn 
by instinctive sympathy. One of two things must be she 
assured herself. Either Wilfrid Blake had mistaken his 
vocation, or she had conceived a mistaken, a falsely flat- 
tering impression of him. Probably the latter. 

The curtain was to rise at seven. For the previous half- 
hour the shady, spiral mountain way from Vicocastello to 
Mera had witnessed a singular upward procession of con- 
veyances various, every description of obsolete and 
rickety trap having been dragged out to assist in trundling 


14 


PROLOGUE, 


the pleasure^eekers up the hill. Over a hundred amiable, 
uncritical English tourists were presently mustered on the 
rows of wooden benches, in the ancient, roomy, dilapi- 
dated banvueting-hall of one of the ex-mansions of the 
Counts of Mera, now appropriated to the smoking and 
drinking bouts of the popular shooting clubs of the canton. 

Austin Day, who till the last moment had been helping 
behind the scenes, slipped away just in time to fetch his 
daughter from the hotel opposite, and escort her to her 
seat in the front row. Their entrance created a little 
flutter, as though it were a part of what the audience had 
paid to see. Marcia’s tall young figure, fine looks, and 
graceful movements made of her almost as noticeable an 
object in a crowd as her father. She wore plain white, and 
round her shoulders a light silken wrap of faint, translu- 
cent sea green. She liked these pale shades of color. 
All garish tints, and sharp, picturesque contrasts she intui- 
tively avoided in her personal adornment. 

“ Tears first, then laughter,” whispered her father in her 
ear, as she studied the programme. “ It’s the order of 
Art, not the order of Nature.” 

Marcia read, on her bill of fare ; 


AWAKING, 


Victor Tremaine . 
Harold, his brother 
Walter, his child . 
Dr. Merridew 


Mr. Wilfrid Carroll. 

Mr, Robert Blake. 

Master Davenport Brown. 
Mr, Fanshawe. 

Mrs. Fanshawe. 

Miss Davenport Brown. 


Constance Tremaine 
Margaret 


“ Translated from the French, of course,/’ added 
Austin Day. “ Frivolous France, from whom we import 
all our serious subjects ! ” 

The little drama was new to Marcia. In effect, a one- 
character piece, which may be much or nothing, accord- 
ing to the hands into which falls the leading part of Victor 
Tremaine. 

A tragic subject. A young husband and father, who 
has been out of his mind for years, owing to the accidental 
death, by his own hand, of his little boy, is cured by being 
made to suppose for a few minutes that the past is a dream, 
and his child is living. 


PROLOGUE. 


n 

Marcia, with whom, hitherto, interest in any dramatic 
impersonation had always been dissociated from the least 
interest in the actor as a private individual, was aware, as 
the curtain rose, of a recreant curiosity to know how 
Wilfrid Carroll would acquit himself. 

The distinction, the individuality of his appearance would 
alone have sufficed to compel a first attention. The subtle 
excellence of his inapparent stage disguise did not escape 
her. His voice — she knew that already — was an invaluable 
gift of fortune : a natural magic, conferred on him together 
with the intuitive sense of its right application. 

Some thought his portrayal of insanity, though conveyed 
chiefly by minute, spontaneous touches, too realistic. It 
made them feel positively uncomfortable, as if in the actual 
presence of a mind diseased. Mrs. Davenport Brown, a 
narrow observer, whispered to Marcia that she had noticed 
the first time she saw him, that the young man had a wild 
look in his eye. Marcia nearly laughed aloud. She. who 
was even more narrowly observant, had perceived that 
Wilfrid Carroll’s range of expression was indefinitely wide ; 
further, that it was as absolutely under his own control as 
his voice. Certainly that attractive personality of his was 
needed to soften the melancholy of the too vividly here 
presented picture : of the victim of a fatality that has left 
him a monomaniac, haunted by the delusion that his wife 
abhors him as a murderer, and that justice is dogging his 
footsteps. 

Throughout the crisis, the single short scene of which 
the play consists, the actor, like the patient, is on perilous 
ground. Keen must be the sense maintained of a highly- 
strung situation, whilst the least false note, a stroke too 
much or too little, must mar all. 

Wilfrid Carroll, a student then, was already wiser than 
many of his teachers. His natural facilities enabled him to 
dispense with much of the lumber of stage traditions, worn 
tricks of attitude and emphasis, and abrupt transitions. 
A rare dramatic instinct solved for this young adventurer 
the eternal riddle : how to reflect nature faithfully and yet 
give the impression of a new creation. Marcia was aban- 
doning herself insensibly to the spell; her imagination 
transported into the strange, the unnatural emergency of 
the story. She was watching with acute attention the 
awakening of the man whose madness, caused by the ex- 


PROLOGUE. 


f6 

tremity of grief, it is proposed to remedy by sulden extre- 
mity of joy. 

Wife, brother, and doctor combine in the desperate ex- 
periment. A second child, born soon after the death of 
the first, has grown up its living image. On awaking from 
sleep the father is to be persuaded that his terrible memo- 
ries belong to the delirium of brain fever, and the living 
child is to be presented to him as a proof. 

Each moment brought Marcia some fresh surprise, in 
some fresh masterly touch, some subtle suggestion con- 
veyed j changes, like the notes in a piece of music, too 
quick and delicate in their sequence to be separately 
heeded. Whatever he lacked, the young man before her 
was a born improvisatore in that fascinating language of 
expression which is all but independent of words, and how 
far more surely and electrically communicative ! What 
word-magic could have shown so much, so vividly, in so 
few minutes ? The conflict of memory with present, cheer- 
ful reality, the haunting dread and baffled perplexity 
becoming utter bewilderment, as one attendant after 
another makes him the same assurance ; the intense joy 
and relief at the sight of the child, and the apparent right- 
ing of his unhinged faculties by the happy delusion. But 
the delusion is incomplete. 

“ I never saw anything like it in all my life,” was Austin 
Day’s abrupt, half-muttered comment ; he, the professional 
critic, alone, perhaps, here to note all the fine touches, the 
unexpected strokes of art that, to the unprofessional, were 
merged in the lifelike realization ; those indefinable, feli-J 
citous indications of lurking suspicion left alive, bringing 
uneasiness, then defiance, becoming frantic suspense, 
broken by the counter-shock of the accidental discoveryj 
that he is being duped, precipitating the catastrophe, when- 
the peril of returning madness is finally averted by a sud-j 
den light, as the child, to his passionate question, “ Who- 
are you ? ” gives the childish reply : * 

“ 1 am — my little brother.” 

And the revulsion of feeling brought by full comprehen- 
sion draws tears from the father’s eyes \ the remedy for 
his mind’s disease has been found. 

At this point several ladies found themselves properly 
affected, and liberally displayed their pocket-handkerchiefs. 


PROLOGUE, 


*7 


It was the pathetic situation — the little boy ! Having 
never before heard of Carroll the actor, it did not occur 
to such spectators that he could be possessed of extra- 
ordinary powers. Of competent, independent critics the 
audience counted two, an unusually large proportion : 
Marcia and her sire. 

“ That young man will be the first actor in England ! 

Austin Day would hardly have cared to stake his 
soothsayer’s reputation by making this rash prophecy 
aloud. But Marcia had heard the whispered expression 
of his sentiments — the summing up and sanction, as it 
were, of her own. 

Called before the curtain, the young man received the 
rounds of applause with an indifference which an older 
hand would have taken pains to disguise. It pleased 
Marcia. She saw, too, that he looked straight at herself. 

Into her grey eyes, like a thought-reader. Only for a 
moment ; a sudden raid on her secret self! 

In their three days’ intercourse he had found her dis- 
tant, faintly disdainful, not averse, perhaps, to letting him 
know her estimate of his profession. His manner in return, 
reserved and abrupt, hid a secret chafing. His look now 
was a victor’s challenge she met frankly and generously. 
No need to join in the clapping of hands. The flush on 
her cheeks, the light in her eye, the play of expression on 
her lips bespoke her surrender. Wilfrid Blake had, after 
all, perhaps done well to become Carroll the actor. 

Marcia’s thoughts were astray for the next half-hour. 
Vainly she tried to fix her attention on Mrs. Fanshawe’s 
unrivalled impersonation of the Area Belle. “ A quarter 
of a century since I wrote my first critique on her in the 
part,” mused Austin Day aloud. It enraptured the au- 
dience ; effaced the very recollection of the preceding 
piece. Its fun tickled them and carried them along; and 
called for no exercise of their understanding at all. The 
masterly impersonator of Victor Tremaine aroused a far 
more general and cordial enthusiasm by his masterly imi- 
tation of a London milkman’s cry than by the xtdXtour de 
force of which he had just now shown himself capable. 
All the comic actress’ pet points and bits of stage business 
with her area beaux were applauded to the echo. Only 
too soon came the end ; there were loud recalls for the old 
favorite, a buzz of pleasure, then the audience rose, and in 

2 


PROLOGUE. 


i8 

another minute became absorbed in the really serious 
business of getting home to Vicocastello. 

The stir in the village had long died away ; the carriages 
were trundling down the hill. Marcia was still too excited 
to think. It was a magnificent night, and half the Mera 
party, she among them, had strolled into the hotel garden : 
the performers were at supper within. Marcia had seen 
all that was best in the then acting world — been thrilled 
by Wigan and Fechter, convulsed by Tool and Mathews. 
And between the player and the man her fancy had set a 
gap, a sharp division, an obstinate divorce. But the per- 
sonal qualities in Wilfrid Blake that had appealed to her 
liking entered so intimately into the fascinating glimpse 
she had just received of his genius that there was no 
separating them. It was an upset to her girlish philo- 
sophy on the subject. 

He, with the rest, presently came out into the garden. 
He was near her, yet did not speak, though her look of 
expectation seemed once or twice to invite him to address 
her. But he too had pride ; she had made him feel she 
despised him for his choice of a calling. It was for her 
to come forward with the amende honorable., if she felt it 
was due. 

They were standing side by side in the Alpine moon- 
light, which played through the boughs of the orchard- 
trees, and showed the picturesque irregularity of the green 
garden plots, edged with box, the flower-beds a gay tangle 
of poppies, carnations, marigolds, sunflowers, phlox, 
dahlias and hollyhocks. Marcia stood still, to pluck an 
apricot from the bough ; he too lingered, whilst the rest 
sauntered on, out of earshot. 

“ That was a well-timed hurricane for the Campo pea- 
sants,” she said, “ falling just when you were there, who 
had it in your power to come to the rescue.” 

He bent his head slightly, saying, with pointed irony : 

“ It is the poor privilege of a despised profession that 
its mummery may now and then be turned to account to 
help destitute persons to bread and cheese.” 

“ My father would tell you,” said Marcia, in a lower 
tone, “ that only vulgar minds despise it, because they can 
only see its vulgarer side.” 

“ It has been degraded,” he said, “ and to that degree 
that it may seem presumption in any single individual to 


PROLOGUE. 


19 


dream of helping appreciably towards its regeneration. A 
foolish ambition ! ” he concluded. There was sharp scru- 
tiny in the look that he cast at her. 

“ A noble one,” said the girl gravely. 

“ You can so regard it yourself? ” he let fall incredu- 
lously. 

“ Yes ; in one who has the power to carry it out.” 

“ The first actor in EfiglandT Her father’s words came 
back to her, her imagination forestalling even more than 
was implied by that exalted position. 

Down the narrow garden walk they went, talking now 
of commonplace things it would have bored them to dis- 
cuss a moment ago. But some glamor lent charm and 
interest to the simplest phrases interchanged. The grey 
mountain wall towered immediately above them in lofty 
grandeur, chill and inflexible as Death or Fate, watching 
and waiting, whilst the summer roses bloom and wither. 
They saw only the flowers at their feet and the fruit-trees 
overhead, silvered in the moonlight. Austin Day and the 
other strollers, chatting contentedly in pairs and groups, 
seemed equally forgetful of the lateness of the hour. 

Only Robert Blake was left out in the cold, having 
joined company with no one, nor been chosen by any lady 
for her cavalier. He stood staring at the tops of the 
poplar-trees over the garden wall, the lichen-grown chalet 
roofs that clustered round it, the hop-wreathed balustrade 
of the balcony stairs. From time to time his eyes followed 
Wilfrid and Marcia, always side by side, and talking so 
earnestly ! That handsome, high-mannered daughter of 
Austin Day’s, of whom Robert was unconsciously afraid, 
and whom he consciously disliked — prejudiced against 
her further by the fact which, though considerately ignored, 
was no secret to any one, that she had no legal right to 
bear her father’s name — was engrossing his brother in no 
common degree, said an instinctive jealousy, born of great 
fondness. Robert, who was himself helplessly in love with 
a young lady in England (he had been dreaming of her a 
moment ago), suddenly forgot his own romance in his 
irrational, half-sullen, brotherly aversion for the love tale 
he fancied might be opening under his eyes. He longed 
to plant himself bodily between them, but he was too shy. 
He strained to overhear, and the sentences he caught 
inocked him by their platitude. Voice to voice, look to 


20 


PROLOGUE. 


look, presence to presence — it was enough — in the novel 
freedom of mutual understanding ; she, enjoying the sense 
of the barrier gone which her own prepossessions had 
raised, was feeling the full charm of her companion’s being, 
whose quick working he owed to his natural, rare and per- 
fect gift of self-expression. 

Wilfrid had admitted to his brother that he found her 
interesting (and Robert had made no objection), just now 
he was aware only of her beauty ; the indescribably seduc- 
tive grace of her tall figure, as she stooped to pick a flower 
or scented verbena leaf in the moonlight. 

“ Hang her ! ” thought Robert Blake. Helplessness 
can make a saint savage. Heaven be thanked that she 
and her father are leaving the first thing to-morrow ! ” 


HI. 

“ Afraid, Bertha ? That will never do. But why should 
you be afraid ? ” 

“ The audience are indulgent, I know, when one is young 

and wears a pretty dress,” said Bertha hurriedly, “ but ” 

and she hesitated. 

“ You don’t care to owe your success to your youth and 
your chiffo7is^^ Marcia responded. “ There I perfectly 
sympathize. Well, forget the spectators and yourself. 
Think of what you are doing, not of what they are think- 
ing.” 

So said Marcia, three monthsafter her return from abroad, 
to the girl who, though some years her junior, had been 
her friend and schoolmate from early childhood, as they 
sat iete-d-tite in Surrey Lodge, Austin Day’s waterside 
villa at West Sheen, overlooking what, with pardonable 
pride, we English denominate simply as “ The River ” — 
the Jordan of our land. A pleasant but modest residence, 
his bird-of-passage nature disinclining him for the fixed 
cares and responsibilities of a larger establishment. 

Bertha Norton was the pretty eldest daughter of an artist 
of merit, whom failing health and a numerous family had 
sadly impoverished. Bent on becoming the pillar of the 
hapless household, the young girl had recently entered the 
theatrical professional, and made a fairly promising be- 


PROLOGUE. 


21 


ginning in the provinces. A protegee of Austin Day's — 
her father’s old friend — she had been engaged by him Tor 
an autumnal series of special performances at the local 
theatre of West Sheen : “ Dramatic Week,” which he, these 
last three Novembers, had spent — the world said wasted — 
much time, trouble, and money in getting up. 

The honor, as the date approached, filled the young 
candidate with more dread than delight, till, for fear lest 
she should prove undeserving of it, she was ready to cry 
off. In vain Marcia tried to reason, scold, or coax away 
a mativaise honte, to her, quite incomprehensible. 

“ My father has taken pains to give you this opening, 
and you to hang back at the last ? Come, Bertha, for 
shame ! ” 

Helefia is a prominent character. At Liverpool I 
played small parts only.” 

“ You were at Liverpool ? I had forgotten. When was 
that ? ” Marcia looked up, speaking with a slight change 
of tone, as at the transition from an impersonal to a per- 
sonal interest in the subject. 

“ It was last April,” said Bertha. 

“ Of course. With the Fanshawes — and — Mr. Carroll ? ” 

Bertha assented with a blush, and a bright soft smile 
passed, making her look very pretty indeed for a moment, 
an unconscious self-betrayal that for some reason checked 
the question Marcia had on her lips. After a pause Bertha 
resumed : 

“Suppose I were to fail — to breakdown?” Then as 
the suggested catastrophe left her friend perversely 
unmoved, “ Suppose it was yourself,” she concluded 
desperately. 

“Well?” said Marcia, with a calm that made Bertha 
stare. Marcia laughed, and continued : 

“ It would prove either that I had not studied enough 
or that I had mistaken my vocation. Or perhaps that 
there was some fault in me that spoilt everything, and 
must be got rid of, or the career abandoned.” 

“ It is easy to talk,” said Bertha excitedly, “ but can 
you really suppose that you, in my place, would not be 
nervous beforehand ? ” 

“ I should certainly not- be afraid,” said Marcia con- 
vincingly. 

“ Ah ! you are not ambitious,” sighed Bertha, 


22 


PROLOGUE. 


Marcia flashed a curious look at her out of her large, I 
oval-shaped grey eyes, then answered : 1 

“I don’t know if I am ambitious, Bertha, I never ” 
thought about it ; but this I can tell you for certain, that I 
no theatrical, no professional success would ever satisfy 
the feeling that stands to me instead of ambition.” 

Poor Bertha, whose wildest day-dreams — dreams that 
thrill her with delight — are of playing Juliet or Beatrice at 
some distant date, and the crown of whose aspirations is 
a full house, a successful benefit, and plenty of praise in 
the papers ! 

“ Yes, yes, I know your inveterate prejudice against ’ 
actors,” she began. Marcia quickly interposed : i 

“ We were speaking of actresses. As for prejudices, 
every one has likes and dislikes. I have mine ; but real, 
narrow, senseless prejudice, you must know very well, 
could not long survive under one roof with my father. 
Certainly, I should not care to enter that profession 
myself, nor any other. I would do so if necessary — I see 
no objection — but never out of ambition. After all, which ' 
of us women, in any public career, can hope to equal, | 
much less surpass, the men who compete with us ? ” I 

“ In Art their chances are even,” protested Bertha ; 
eagerly, following with a long list of female celebrities. 
Marcia, unconverted, pursued : 

“ Their work is judged by a lower standard. The 
world could do very well without it ; I think it would 
hardly be missed. The best of us only do what the best 
men do much better. Even on the stage they were long 
dispensed with altogether, and their scope there is much, i 
much narrower. There will never be a female Garrick.” 1 
Bertha listened, baffled, but her curiosity excited by the * 
novel vivacity of her friend’s tone. Marcia paused, her 
face lighted up, and Bertha was half startled by the 
increasing force of expression that came into it, as she 
spoke on with animation ; 

“ But say now that you were to meet a man with a 
future before him worth your living for, and that he loved 
you. Imagine another career. To devote yourself to 
him absolutely, intelligently, till you have made yourself j 
indispensable to his well-being and prosperity by your | 
incessant ministry, as you learn to ward off from his life ,J 
all those petty stings and cares which may cripple the 


PROLOGUE. 


23 


most heroic energies ; sustain his power for work, and so 
double his actual achievements ; avert such hindrances to 
success as may lie in his disposition or circumstances ; 
not disdaining the smallest means to this end, whilst study- 
ing to fit yourself for the highest and hardest tasks — there 
is scope here for talent, for genius, if you have it. He 
should feel your constant sympathy something he can rely 
on as surely as on his own eyesight ; your fresh and 
intelligent judgment a trustworthy ally, always at hand, 
when his brain is tired or overstrung. You quicken all 
his faculties and extend their play. You are his truer self, 
to inspire, guide, spur, or restrain, as may be, and for 
your reward you have the knowledge that his high position 
would have been lower, or never approached, but for you ; 
that without your love to soothe, your mind to support 
his in need, he might endanger or lose his greatness ; to 
feel that though the world may not know it, and he him- 
self but half realizes it, you have become, through your 
untiring efforts, the genius of his life, the securer and the 
guardian of his fame. This is what no man can do for 
any one. It is our part to play with success. I think 
success in it would content me.” 

Marcia rose to her full height as she finished her 
impulsive speech, walked to the window, and stood there 
looking out — a handsome, statuesque, young Hermione- 
like figure. Animation made another creature of her. 
Less easily stirred than Bertha, she had more surprises in 
store for those whose attention she attracted. 

Her confession sounded right, womanly, almost ortho- 
dox ; yet something in it grated on Bertha’s gentler 
instincts. Odd, that she, the timid and pliable one, should 
be upholding the cause of female independence against 
her imperial-natured friend. Bertha was silent, musing. 
Clearly Marcia was not without ambition. If she pre- 
ferred the home-influence she had just eloquently de- 
scribed to art repute, it was because she saw there the 
mightier power in the world of the two. 

“ There comes my father,” said Marcia presently. 
“ Tell him your troubles, Bertha. He will know better 
than I what to say.” 

Austin Day, just returned from his daily run to Lon- 
don, now entered, with a cordial handshake for his pro- 
te^ie, and a whispered aside to his daughter to the effect 


24 


PROLOGUE, 


that Wilfrid Blake was coming to dinner with them that 
night. Bertha had risen to go. Marcia kissed her, say- 
ing : 

“ Good-bye, Bertha dear. Father, here is a debutante 
who wants reassuring. I have tried and failed. Try, 
you.” 

Austin Day succeeded better. He invited the child to 
pour out her difficulties to him ; sympathized with her 
qualms, pooh-poohed her exaggerated self-depreciation, 
soothed her with wise words, made her laugh by his way 
of putting things, hinted at unconscious vanity lying at the 
root of this excessive self-torment, praised her conscien- 
tiousness, lectured her pleasantly as he walked with her to 
the garden gate ; and sent her home inspirited, in an 
altered, healthier mood. 

“ He is quite right ; conceit is at the bottom of it all,” 
thought Bertha, as she went. Marcia is not conceited ; 
and that must be why she could not understand.” 


Marcia was dressing for dinner. Thrown, whilst still a 
mere girl, on her own taste and judgment, in the critical 
matter of costume, these had led her to avoid furbelows, 
elaborate design or trimmings, and trickeries of fashion. 
However costly the material — and she liked costly 
material — the style she chose was simple. Always care- 
ful of her personal appearance, to-night she paid extra 
attention to the perfect adjustment of her crown of hair, 
the neatness of her dress, and graceful flow of its heavy 
folds. Her father, whose fondness for her was infinite, 
and his attention always alive, noticed how particularly 
well she looked this evening. It was a real pleasure for 
the eye to rest on the lines of her slim figure, the natural 
grace of her pose and movements, the clearness of her 
young complexion, the snake-like coils of hair twined 
round her head. 

It was no common trio that gathered at Austin Day’s 
table that night, combining, in a marked degree, the two 
prime ingredients of enjoyable company — harmony and 
contrast. At the head of it, he, in the maturity of in- 
tellect undecayed and of experience, beaming with human 
kindness, penetration, and skilful sympathy, drawing all 
hearts after him unresistingly. Marcia, the youthful 


PROLOGUE. 


25 


embodiment of feminine dignity and grace, the superior 
intelligence of her countenance heightening the charm, 
to clever men, of her receptive manner of instinctive 
deference, her attitude of silent attention. And Wilfrid 
Blake, at that treacherous, fascinating point, the start of 
the race, with his hands full of gifts, conferring undoubted 
possibilities of becoming a winner. Marcia was vividly 
observant of every word and look of her father’s new 
protege^ though the conversation was general, and Austin 
Day had the lion’s share. 

Their talk turned naturally on the English stage, and 
its actual deplorable condition. It was in 187 — , when 
its position in the estimate of society was one in signal 
contrast to the place of dignity and importance accorded 
it in the present day. The contempt in which it was 
held went far beyond its deserts. Further, the existing 
degradation was fashionably regarded as chronic and 
incurable. Wilfrid Blake was to some extent penetrated 
by the common feeling. Austin Day put forward an 
opposite and then unfashionable view. 

“The theatre is under a cloud, out of which it will 
presently pass. The eclipse results from the accidental 
convergence of a number of ephemeral influences. That 
pass off it must, is certain. The English nation has not 
changed to that degree that its standard of art can be 
permanently lowered or even materially altered by the 
accident of a period of depression.” 

“Then how account for the present collapse? ” Blake 
inquired ; “ the dearth of good actors and good plays ? ” 

I “ I deny that such dearth exists. There is plenty 
* of talent, as any one who cares to take the trouble may 
ascertain. The fact that so much of it is squandered on bur- 
lesque blinds people to the excellence of the material thus 
absorbed. But to suppose even now that the stage is given 
over to bad puns and blonde wigs, and screaming farces 
at the best, is the mistake of society, who won’t go to the 
theatre. The decade that has seen Kate Terry’s Ophelia 
and Beatrice, Mrs. Rousby’s Rosalind, Wigan’s best im- 
personations, the inimitable comedy of Charles Mathews, 
and the still subtler art of John Parry Dewar, Miss 
Oliver, and others in burlesque, has had ample proof that 
dramatic genius, of all orders and degrees, exists and is 
not even rare among us. It is scattered and frequently 


26 


PROLOGUE, 


misdirected. The concentration and proper application 
of talent is all that is wanting to restore the stage to that 
high level it should rightfully occupy in the land where 
Shakespeare, as actor and playwright, lived and flourished.” 

You believe in a revival of taste for the serious 
drama, an improvement in the nature of the thing demand- 
ed, and a consequent improvement in the supply ? ” 

“ Firmly, though we act Julius Ccesar to empty benches 
on Monday. You and Marcia will certainly see it. ^ It 
may not come soon enough for me, but I think it will.” 

Less sanguine, Wilfrid Blake remarked, “ Perhaps it is 
easier for you to credit the idea of the good time coming 
than for the actors themselves, who see Shakespeare 
travestied, the higher drama set aside for the flimsiest 
comedies; and find the first condition of success, for 
play and players alike, to be that they shall not make the 
slightest demands on the intelligence of the public.” 

“ Five or six years back, when we had further to go to 
get from under the cloud, I could forgive them for des- 
ponding,” Austin Day replied. “ But the tide is already 
on the turn. It needs no prophet now to forecast the 
speedy dawn of a better era, the opening of worthier 
fields for genius and resolution. To such aspirants I say, 
‘Be ready to step into possession when the times are 
ripe.’ ” He was raising his glass to his lips, and concluded 
gracefully, “ To the dramatic renaissance I foresee, and 
to your part in it. We want actors, I don’t say with higher 
gifts, but with higher ambitions, and an altogether new 
sense of their duty to themselves and to their art. We shall 
have them.” 

And then, perhaps, we shall have dramatists worth the 
name,” Marcia observed. 

“ Ay, but for that you may have to wait a while longer.” 
Suddenly addressing himself to Wilfrid Blake, he asked, 
“ Do you happen, by the way, to know anything of a writer 
named Arthur Sundorne ? Whilst waiting at Fanshawe’s 
house to-day I glanced through a short Tasso at 

Sorrento, a Dramatic Idyl — that I found on his table. I 
never heard of it nor, so far as I recollect, of the author. 
Has it ever been acted? ” 

“ We acted it at Liverpool,” Blake replied. “ Fanshawe 
had a fancy to try it. They applauded us and hissed the 
piece, which was withdrawn after the second night,” 


PROLOGUE. 


27 


‘‘ They were wrong. Only it defies, perhaps too flatly, 
the dramatic fashions of our time. Who is the man ? ” 

“ I can tell you very little about him. He is poor, they 
say, no longer young, and very eccentric. He printed 
Tasso at his own expense, but refused to come to the per- 
formance when he heard that Fanshawe intended to make 
certain cuts in the piece. He lives the life of a recluse, 
somewhere down in the country.” 

“ How would it be,” Austin Day suggested, “ if on the 
last night, instead of Aiaaking, we played Tasso at Sor- 
rento ? ” 

“ I should be quite willing,” replied the actor. “ The 
piece deserves another trial.” 

“ I confess I should be curious to see it represented. I 
should put my little protigie^ Bertha Norton, into the part 
of the girl.” 

And the talk turned on the necessary stage arrangements. 
Marcia now withdrew into the next room, where she sat 
quite still and abstracted, till by-and*by the others joined 
her. 

The social enjoyment of that evening acted on Marcia 
like a mental intoxicant. She could only confusedly 
remember, afterwards, what was said, what was done, that 
should cause this extreme pleasure and exhilaration. 
Austin Day was fluent and animated, Wilfrid Blake less 
light-hearted, being younger, but equally apt at conversa- 
tion. Superiority is never fully evident except under the 
test of superior company ; and his unaffectedly deferent 
attitude towards her father pleased Marcia particularly. 
She spoke little at first, then joined in more freely, caught 
by the lively interest, verging on enthusiasm, that inspired 
her companions both. She felt herself parting with the last 
shred of contemptuous prejudice against actors, as such. 
Frivolity, conceit, little-mindedness, their name was not 
Wilfrid Blake. His very faults — pride, arising from con- 
sciousness of power, over-independence, and fastidiousness 
— were eminently congenial to her. 

It was nearly midnight when they separated, Austin 
Day accompanying his guest to the garden gate. Return- 
ing, he found his daughter standing exactly in the same 
position as when he had left her, by the drawing-room 
fire. 

“ Are you not tired ? ” he asked, as he settled himself in 
an easy-chair^ beside a writing-table. He had some two 


2S 


PROLOGUE. 


hours’ work still before him— a file of letters to answer, 
pamphlets to read, proof-sheets to revise — and prepared to 
address himself to business. Austin Day was never tired ; 
that was a lady’s privilege. 

“No, I am your own daughter,” said Marcia, laughing 
constrainedly, as she still stood there musing, whilst he 
began arranging his papers and adjusting the reading-lamp, 
previous to commencing operations, already half absorbed 
in the matter before him. 

“ Father,” spoke Marcia’s voice close by his side. 

She had come up to him and now seated herself on a low 
stool at his feet. Her tone, her expression, were unusual 
and significant. There reigned a perfect understanding 
between father and daughter ; he knew now that some 
grave thought was in her mind, sufficient to account for 
this sudden change of mood. Marcia showed herself the 
least capricious of women ; she deserved to be taken 
seriously. No mere girl’s whim spoke in her now. She 
never hampered him by uncertain temper or unreason, a.nd 
he, in return, acknowledged her first claim on his attention 
— in the rare moments when she asserted it. He brushed 
away the business papers now, and leaned back in his 
chair, resting his hand paternally on her head. After a 
pause she went on, with the same earnest gravity, keeping 
her eyes steadily turned away — as she sat, she could not 
see his face : 

“ Father, there was something you promised to tell me, 
if ever I asked you. That was six years ago. I promised 
to hear it from no lips but yours. I never have asked. I 
preferred to wait. I have shut my ears to the words of 
outside friends on that subject. But now, I want you to 
tell me.” 

Austin Day’s features contracted ; his expression changed, 
and became fixed and sad. Marcia’s request was clearly 
one it cost him a painful effort to comply with, and his 
habit was to shun painful things. 

“ To-night ? ” he said. 

“ Yes, to-night,” said Marcia, softly but firmly. 

Austin Day could cope with disagreeable tasks, or he 
would not be where he is. What was inevitable he always 
managed to acquiesce in with a good grace. Some time, 
he reflected, this ordeal would have to be gone through. 
Marcia ought to hear what she had asked for, which was 


PROLOGUE. 


29 


nothing less than the history of her birth. Why not to- 
night, as well as any other time ? 

‘‘ You are quite sure that you wish it ? ” he said slowly, 
reluctantly. 

“ Quite sure.’' 

He assented, but, sunk in thought, let some time elapse 
before he spoke again. A complete change had come over 
the aspect of that room, where, a few minutes ago, three 
choice spirits were mingling their talk, in the zest and 
elation of looking onward, like adventurers starting for the 
gold-fields. Sad and sober of a sudden. Memory, the 
kill-joy, had risen to the call. It was the tired, disap- 
pointed, duped fortune-seeker looking back. 

As Austin Day’s abstraction deepened, the lines came 
out in his face, he looked his full age, and his natural 
animation was chilled. Gladly would he have avoided 
recalling this episode, rolling away the stone from this one 
grave. But it was necessary, and he did not flinch. 

Truth to tell, when he had done it, lie found that Time 
had dulled the edge of regret and remorse. It was almost 
like reading a page of some affecting book, so utterly apart 
did it stand from his present self. It had become a mere 
link in the chain of events ; and in the depths of his soul 
something whispered that what had happened ultimately 
had happened for the best. He had nothing to his own 
discredit to relate beyond what Marcia knew already. He 
might have exculpated himself, morally, more fully ; but 
he had no intention of trying. She might divine that his 
blame was small ; but he would so word the history as 
best to spare the memory of the dead, whom he had 
loved so unwisely, and on whom, even more than on him- 
self, rested the responsibility of what had been the sole 
error of his life, but a grave and all but a fatal one. 


It was passing late when young Blake reached the 
chambers in London which he was sharing with his 
brother, who had just passed his examination for his 
doctor’s degree, and whom he surprised sitting up study- 
ing a certain pretty photograph. This the student hastily 
smuggled out of sight, to spare himself the kind of banter 
with which he was ready to load the new-comer. 


30 


PROLOGUE. 


“ Where the deuce have you been ? ” he asked, pre- 
tending to yawn, as he looked up from the pages of the 
medical work open topsy-turvy before him. 

“ Met Austin Day, who asked me to come and dine at 
Surrey Lodge.” 

“ Ah, I understand. A pleasant evening you were in 
no hurry to break up ! ” 

Wilfrid smiled slightly, untroubled, it seemed, by his 
brother’s inquisitive scrutiny, as he answered him : 

“ Austin Day was glorious. What a man he is ! ” 

“ And his high and mighty daughter, eh ? ” 

“ She was there.” 

“ Did she look handsome to-night?” 

“ Very.” 

“ And proud ? ” 

“ As Hera.” 

“ Her airs are too many for me,” said Robert, irked by 
his brother’s sang-froid. “ Most absurd too, in that — 
Miss Day, as she chooses to call herself! ” 

Wilfrid, who had flung himself into a chair opposite, 
met the look cast at him with a stare of perfect, baffling 
amiability, as he remarked : 

“ I say, Rob, it’s tremendously hot up here. Have you 
got something to drink ? ” 


IV. 

Wilfrid Carroll Blake had grown up to manhood 
amid propitious circumstances, as circumstances go. He 
had known no degrading struggles ; his home-surroiind- 
ings, if not more elevating than is common in English 
middle-class life, had at least had no extreme tendency 
the other way. He might thank Heaven, if not for any 
special blessings, for what is of far more consequence — 
the absence of special hindrances to his moral and general 
welfare. Of gentle birth, brought up in ease, not in 
affluence, he had passed through his school and university 
career creditably, as if booked in advance for one of the 
professions to which a classical education is accounted 
the highroad. His dramatic gift had shown itself so early, 
and was so pronounced, that it had come to be taken for 


PROLOGUE. 


3 * 


granted by his family, as much as the color of his eyes 
I and the quantity of his hair ; and with as little idea that 
I it could determine his fate. 

His desire, which he notified on leaving college, to turn 
to the stage instead of to the bar, raised a storm-wave of 
opposition at home which might have daunted a more in- 
flexible spirit ; when chance supervened in the form of a 
grave domestic predicament. The premature death of his 
father, a clergyman, and of the family income with him, 
forced upon Wilfrid and his brother the immediate neces- 
sity of earning a living, though at the cost of having to 
pocket their gentility. This left him the freer to follow 
his bent ; but what actually decided the matter was the 
pure accident of his meeting Fanshawe at an evening 
party. The actor was taken by young Blake’s gentle- 
manly manner and appearance. He had heard of his 
intention, and now offered him an engagement to make 
himself useful in his comedy company for a short pro- 
vincial tour. 

It was the turning point of his life. Home resistance 
flagged, as sentimental, in the face of the liberal terms 
named by Mr. Fanshawe. Mrs. Blake, who had settled 
herself with her daughters in a cheap country town — one 
of eight hundred widows there residing — was resigned, if 
unsympathetic. If dear Wilfrid had a fault, it was im- 
patience. The higher paths of ambition being suddenly 
closed to him, it was perhaps inevitable, she reflected, 
that he should do something erratic. They remained on 
affectionate terms, but, moving in different worlds, the per- 
sonal relations between Wilfrid and the female members of 
his family were already in a fair way to die as natural a 
death as though he or they were living in New Zealand. 

He made no effort, on the conclusion of his first en- 
gagement, to obtain one in London, but took a succession, 
all more or less ineligible, that presented themselves in the 
provinces, bearing the numerous and extreme unpleasant- 
nesses of the apprenticeship, with the composure, not of 
fortitude, but of one unable at first properly to apprehend 
their significance. He wanted to practise himself, to 
acquire the stage experience he needed for the efficiency 
of his own power. This accomplished, that he could 
command success he never doubted. Meanwhile he played 
everything, from the most trifling roles up to first parts on 


32 


PROLOGUE, 


an emergency, when the leading actor had to be replaced 
at a moment’s notice, and Carroll’s memory, which was 
something extraordinary, led to his being thrust forward 
as substitute, as when he first distinguished himself in 
Awaking. His talent was too conspicuous to be ignored 
altogether. But he was utterly unknown : his worth, un- 
heralded by any mandate from without, forestalling respect 
and admiration, remained virtually unacknowledged. 
Some were honestly too dull to perceive it ; others too 
timid to trust to the evidence of their senses, without the 
corroboration of authority ; whilst others, who saw it 
clearly, were led by a jealous instinct of self-defence to 
belie their own penetration, to unite in a conspiracy of 
silence as to his merit, whilst not letting his smallest 
peccadillo pass ungibbeted. 

But what the dullest saw in him was a pride that stood 
in his way, a certain rock of shipwreck for an artist of his 
sensitive, fastidious disposition. “ Let not your tongue 
cut your throat,” says the Eastern proverb. He was 
always doing it. Only the established chiefs in any de- 
partment can speak truth with impunity, and they only 
now and then. But Carroll never concealed his exagger- 
ated contempt for the reigning abuses of the stage, openly 
ridiculed the burlesque mania, the travesties of Shake- 
speare that passed for revivals, and the general deteriora- 
tion of dramatic art. As for the cabals and intrigues 
around him, he looked down on them as on a dog-fight, 
and with as little idea of taking part j refusing flatly to 
curry favor with the influential, or lower his pretensions to 
further his immediate i)rofessional interest. It is super- 
fluous to add that though his employers invariably began 
by liking him, differences as invariably arose, and on the 
expiry of an engagement he was often disappointed of the 
expected renewal. A clever actor, too clever by half, but 
he gave himself cursed airs. Better any other sin had 
been laid to his charge. “Because he’s a gentleman,” was 
the vulgar explanation of what, in fact, was a manifesta- 
tion of character due very little, if at all, to education or 
caste. He felt sincerely innocent of rudeness, active dis- 
dain, or iinkindliness — of anything but indifference to 
those he had to do with. He aspired to win his way, and 
he was convinced he could win it— above-board, fairly, 
owing nothing to intrigue, underhand influence, or back- 
stairs favor. 


PROLOGUE, 


33 


His gift was so remarkable, that even though left to 
fight his way unassisted, he would probably sooner or later 
have somehow come to the front. Perhaps in a dozen 
years, when drudgery, jarring, and disillusions had done 
their worst upon him, damaged his powers, trailed his 
higher ambitions in the dust, broken his mettle, and em- 
bittered his spirit, prematurely aged in the protracted 
struggle where his temperament exposed him to severer 
punishment than most. 

Chance again ! That meeting with Austin Day on the 
Alps, the gale, the charity performance which had brought' 
him under the eye of one of the few — perhaps half-a-dozen 
— at once acute and impartial judges in England, had led 
on to his engagement for the dramatic week at West 
Sheen. Julius CcRsar^ with Carroll as Mark Antony, was 
to be given on the first night. It was the very opening 
that he would have desired. 

Not that the representations in question, of which Aus- 
tin Day was the originator and moving spirit, were thea- 
trical events of importance, calculated to attract stars on 
one side of the curtain, and rank and fashion on the other. 
Ten years later the world would have flocked to see a 
“ revival,” except in scenic effect, of inferior merit. Austin 
Day had the greatest difficulty in getting up these fancy 
performances at all ; and they were scarcely heard of out- 
side a very small circle. Stars would not come, unless for 
high terms, prohibitive to the excellence of the ensetnble ; 
and though the author of the undertaking was fully 
prepared to lose upon it , he had no intention of beggaring 
himself thereby. Middling or obscure actors composed 
his material ; and he liked to use the opportunity for 
bringing forward young talent that had come under his 
notice. Above all he aimed at instilling into the company 
a higher artistic spirit than commonly prevails, and to some 
extent he had succeeded. 

However, the experiment had failed — signally failed — 
in the ordinary sense : failed to i)ay, failed to draw. This 
the third year of trial would have to be the last. Austin 
Day was not disaj^pointed ; the good seed might have 
been sown that would bear fruit by-and-by. It iiad been 
a fancy, which his substantial income, assured by his own 
industry, had warranted him in indulging, as another 


3 


34 


PROLOGUE. 


might a passion for hawking, landscape-gardening, yacht- 
ing, or some such expensive whim. 

And if the occasion passed for insignificant in dramatic 
records, it was of instant and vital importance to young 
aspirants like Carroll or Bertha Norton, who had been 
lucky enough to strike Austin Day with a wish to put 
them forward. Dong, indeed, might they have waited for 
such a chance of emerging from the crowd and displaying 
their full powers before an audience sure, at any rate, to 
include certain all-powerful London managers and critics. 
To Bertha, in her timid inexperience, it seemed the very 
crisis of her fate ; she could conceive of no possible out- 
come but either signal success or egregious failure — the 
prosaic truth being that both these exciting issues were 
out of the question ; that she was extremely unlikely to 
rise much above or fall .much below her average ; and that 
the professional benefit she would derive, supposing her 
to acquit herself creditably, would ultimately depend on 
her tact and personal success in ingratiating herself with 
the authorities, who, being but mortal men, could not be 
expected to have their decision in such matters formed on 
purely artistic considerations. Austin Day, in his playful 
paternal manner, spoke out to set her right : “ My dear, 
you are very pretty ; your stage costumes are very becom- 
ing ; you have a pleasing manner, and will probably please 
in a part selected for you, and in which it would be diffi- 
cult for you to fail. But the very rudiments of the art you 
love you have still to acquire. All I can do is to help you 
towards getting the opportunity of learning them. There 
is no cause here for such flutterings of spirit.” And Ber- 
tha blushed, and dutifully laid the lesson to heart. Yes, 
she had everything to learn ; she was not one of the few — 
she had never deluded herself into thinking so — the best 
part of whose unerring skill is a free gift of birth, like 
beauty of person or the right to the crown. 

Nervousness, in the sense of fear, troubled Carroll be- 
forehand, on the contrary, not at all. He was just as cool 
and self-secure that Monday night with the weight of Mark 
Antony’s role on his shoulders as when walking through 
some small part in the provinces, to oblige Fanshawe. 
Nervous, in another sense, to excess when the moment 
came : nerves strung up to that pitch when undiscovered 
powers spring into being — genius in action, an occult. 


PROLOGUE. 


35 


creative force whose real mysteries transcend those of 
legendary tales of sorcery and second sight. Protean in 
its manifestations, uncontrollable as the wind, this force 
that psychical societies of the future may learn to analyze, 
gauge, perhaps bottle up, regulate, and mete out in equal 
doles to all, baffles the science of to-day. 

“ If that play were sent to a manager now,” remarked 
Austin Day to his daughter, as they and Bertha, seated 
in the stage box, awaited the rise of the curtain on the 
first night, “ he would decline it, or anyhow send it back 
for radical alterations.” 

“ Why? ” asked Bertha. 

“ Half a dozen good reasons. Antony, the best acting 
part, scarcely opens his lips before the third act. Then 
there is no sentiment, no love, that is, in the play from be- 
ginning to end.” 

“ And from the manager’s point of view — the commer- 
cial — he would be right,” Marcia responded. “ Had we 
not given away tickets by scores, we should have had a 
mere sprinkling of spectators here this evening.” 

It was a year, indeed, when any performance of Julius 
CcRsar^ always excepting a burlesque on the tragedy, would 
have failed to draw. Nobody could have been persuaded 
beforehand that it would be worth seeing, which most 
probably it would not. But Austin Day’s untiring efforts 
had succeeded in securing a more than passable e?isemble 
to-night. The actors of standing who took part, if nowise 
brilliant, were conscientious artists, or they would not 
have supported the well-meant but chimerical undertaking. 
The spirit of the impresario pervaded the proceedings ; 
the interest on both sides of the curtain was not centred 
in the display of talent by him or by her, but in the whole 
rendering of the play. It gave life to the very crowd of 
soldiers and citizens, who all became and felt of account in 
what was no mere competition for pay and applause. Only 
where very much was required was there glaring short- 
coming. Austin Day, in reply to Marcia’s youthfully severe 
comment on the deplorably ineffective figure cut by the 
personator of the emperor, asked apologetically : 

“ Can you conceive a really satisfactory Caesar on the 
stage ? I cannot. He and his greatness are anti-theatri- 
cal, as the very greatest must be. The actor who would 
convey the right impression would be more of a prodigy 
than Caesar himself.” 


36 


PROLOGUE. 


The appearance of Carroll was, for different reasons, 
the event of the evening to four persons present. 

First, for Robert Blake, on thorns in the front row of 
stalls, watching as if at some critical surgical operation, 
and as seriously concerned for the result. A practical 
man to the backbone, he had yet an almost foolish admira- 
tion for his brother, who had doije all his lessons for him 
at school, and beat him hollow at athletic exercises and 
games of skill besides. He thought Wilfrid might rise to 
be a judge, or, if he stuck to academic pursuits, master 
of a college; and no one had more stoutly opposed the 
determination of the flower of the family flock to devote 
himself henceforth to the stage. But the thing was now 
done, and Robert’s unconscious deference to his brother’s 
superior capacities had half reconciled him already. But 
that Wilfrid should long remain a nonentity among third-, 
rate provincial troupes, exposed to all manner of deterio- 
rating influences, or subside into the well-paid insignifi- 
cance in which charlatan and mediocre artists naturally 
love to keep Art’s born aristocrats, was the dismal, 
intolerable prospect that haunted him as all too probable, 
knowing what he knew of the deficiencies of ballast in his 
brother’s character. 

Austin Day was alive with pleasing expectations, as be- 
hoves the discoverer of a new star which he is about to in- 
troduce to the public ; Marcia much more deeply stirred 
and interested than she chose to own to herself. But 
outwardly cool and self-possessed, she might have been as 
indifferent as Bertha manifestly was the reverse. As Car- 
roll came on, Marcia, glancing at the girl’s transparent 
countenance, saw the same smile of pleasure come and go, 
the same radiant look she had noted once before, when 
suddenly recalling the days at Liverpool, where he and 
Bertha had first become acquainted. “ What sort of remi- 
niscences where those ? ” Marcia asked herself once 
more. 

Carroll looked young, too young, for the part of the 
triumvir. His excellent figure, striking face, the conspi- 
cuous individuality of his appearance, yet made of him no 
unfit representative of a born leader of men, a Roman, and 
a notable one. 

That he did not, could not then, realize in his person 
the Antony of history and Romance--the blunt, bluff, 


PROLOGUE. 


37 


soldier-like lover of wine and women — made of this per- 
formance a test. A part that fits the actor proves nothing 
as to his capacities. And many can fit themselves to their 
jiarts. Just one here and there can, when the exceptional 
necessity for it arises, successfully fit his part to himself. 
The slight shock of surprise and doubt that ran through 
the house soon gave place to a sense of approval. A pe- 
culiar attractive quality in his aspect and stage bearing, 
and alive in the minutest touches, fastened attention on 
himself. Presently people began to notice the excellence 
of his verse-declamation, an art which, like other arts, is 
sometimes inborn. The calculating boy does by instinct 
what others only learn by assiduous effort. Mozart played 
perfectly well without practice. These are but the super- 
lative instances of what, in its common form, we call a 
knack. The noble lines were delivered by Carroll with a 
faultless distinction — a cunning ease that the representa- 
tives of Brutus and Cassius had spent a lifetime apiece in 
acquiring, and barely acquired ; furthermore, with a charm, 
an extempore truth of subtle expression, past their power 
to acquire at all, something that no dramatic school, no 
conservatoire can impart. Artistic, but human above all. 

It is common to hear stage heroes and heroines utter 
deep truths and noble sentiments with a force whose false 
ring is the involuntary protest of a vulgar nature against 
what can awaken there neither sympathy nor even com- 
])rehension. Energetic and insensible, like the street 
urchin bawling out tragic intelligence, with but one moving 
impulse — to sell his half-penny paper. Used to its hollow- 
ness and absurdity, we scarcely perceive these to the full 
till they are contrasted with the ring of the true metal. 

The Brutus of that night was an actor who knew all the 
tricks of the trade ; a wire-puller who had learnt how to 
make a puppet of his audience ; how to force a cheer, 
ensure a recall, or rouse a cheap enthusiasm by a cres- 
cendo of rant, or a sudden pianissimo at a proper moment. 
The puppets responded to his touch ; the applause fol- 
lowed ; to him, as he knows, will fall the chief meed of 
praise in the papers to-morrow. But when young Antony’s 
opportunity came, and Carroll carried the audience away 
with him by the spontaneity of his actor’s cunning, much 
as Mark Antony carried the citizens by a speech whose 
very craft was inspired by a passion of natural resentment, 


38 


PROLOGUE. 


Brutus envied him the genuine effect he provoked, in des- 
pite of his contemptuous neglect of hints and advice, 
assuming himself equal, not to say superior, to the advi- 
ser. 

Brutus is a manager who might do much for a rising 
actor, but Carroll had assuredly not gone the right way to 
propitiate him. 

“ Taking down is what he wants,” was the unanimous 
verdict of his colleagues ; and not one of them but was 
ready to lend a hand in the operation. Poor Brutus felt 
aggrieved that the honors of the night, from the pit at 
least, should fall to this youngster ; that the cheers, when 
after the play the actors, recalled, filed before the curtain, 
should take another and a heartier ring as Wilfrid came 
on — excited, but not elated, the puppy ! regarding his 
triumph, which was unmistakable, as no more than his just 
and natural due, which it was. 

Marcia was wondering if he would look up at them. 
He never thought of it. Bertha sighed. Most women 
would have preferred that in the moment of victory they 
should be remembered. Marcia liked him the better for 
his artist’s self-absorption. It was not vanity, but the sink- 
ing of himself in his creation. 

“ I must go and congratulate him,” said Austin Day, 
rising. 

“ Let me come with you,” said Marcia, taking his arm ; 
and they left the box, Bertha following. 

In the scant space afforded behind the scenes the actors 
were grouped about, the Roman heroes of a moment ago 
become everyday mortals again, and passing from their 
mighty but sham battles to their petty but live feuds, 
sheathing their swords and unloosing their longues. Wil- 
frid, from whom some jarring, trivial taunt had just pro- 
voked a cutting retort, stood scowling apart, pointedly 
avoided, purposely ignored by his comrades. They 
neither rejoiced in his merited success nor pretended to. 
It was his fault, for neglecting to disarm their envy by 
mock modesty, as common prudence would have dictated. 

But in this moment of tension he felt keenly the isolation, 
the slights, the undeserved, derisive hatred, his nerves 
strung up to intense irritability, giving to the sneers and 
untimely jests of his tormentors such a diabolical power to 
annoy that they could hardly be expected to forego its 
exercise. 


PROLOGUE. 


‘‘ You have a colossal talent, my dear friend,” said 
Austin Day’s soothing voice to him in a whisper ; “ but 
mind,” with a quick glance round at the disaffected, who 
were viewing them with jealous suspicion, “ we are men 
first, artists afterwards.” 

And he had passed on, and was shaking hands with the 
rest of the company, dispensing graceful thanks and judi- 
cious compliments, forgetting no one, till they were all in 
a good humor again. 

Bertha, who had seen Wilfrid’s temper in this state of 
ferment before on previous similarly trying occasions, hesi- 
tated instinctively to accost him, for the dead certainty of 
saying the wrong thing. It was Marcia who went up to 
him fearlessly and spoke. 

“ When the battle is won, the victor can make peace. 
You know you have thrown them all into the shade to- 
night. Can you expect them to bless you for it ? ” 

Wilfrid’s brow relaxed. He almost laughed as he 
answered, constrainedly still : 

“ That would show a woeful lack of wit and wisdom on 
my part. Only let them keep their foul-mouthed buffoon- 
ery and horseplay for each other, and not try it on me.” 

“ Oh, they know no better,” said Marcia lightly. “ And 
I think you have had your revenge in advance for the very 
worst they can say or do. What a curious fibula that is of 
yours ! A genuine Roman ornament, I am sure. Look, 
Bertha ! ” 

Wilfrid’s savage humor melted like a morning mist under 
the gentler influences of the soft voices, sweet flattery, and 
agreeable presence of these two pretty daughters of Eve ; 
fair, but contrasting. The girls were about of a height ; 
Bertha of slighter build than her friend ; her briglit curly 
tresses less abundant ; more gold in her hair, more blue 
in her eyes, more pink in her cheeks ; there was charm in 
the variability of her color and expression — Bertha’s mouth 
was rarely shut — and in the transparency of her counte- 
nance, all bespeaking a more timid, pliant, and sensitive 
temperament, more easily sympathetic. Quite as expres- 
sive as Marcia’s outspoken encomiums was Bertha’s silent, 
wistfully-earnest gaze, of the admiring tenor of hen 
thoughts. Their generous appreciation came like a strong 
shield to the latent self-distrust that had made him vulner- 
able. 


40 


PROLOGUE, 


“ Are you not afraid of paying a pariah like me too much 
attention?” he asked of Marcia, with pointed raillery. 
“ They will be jealous.” 

Oh,” said Marcia, with delightful frankness, ‘‘ it is 
much easier to preach worldly wisdom than to practise it. 
However, you are quite right. I was forgetting I had pro- 
mised to ask some of them to supper. And your brother 
— will he not come too ? ” 

Under Austin Day’s sacred roof all brawls were in 
abeyance. There reigned a peace-promoting sense of 
paternal government, whose joint, willing recognition by 
all belligerents brought them into comparative harmony 
for the rest of the evening. 


V. 

Until the age of sixteen Marcia had lived ignorant of the 
fact that the kind-hearted, plain-faced, motherly woman 
who had tended her childhood, watched proudly over her 
girlish promise, and treated her in all respects like her own 
daughter — till she perhaps sometimes almost forgot she 
was not — was not her mother indeed. Austin Day’s wife, 
when she married him, had freely consented to adopt the 
little child, and had died, childless herself, leaving Marcia 
still undeceived. Then her father, fearing lest some gar- 
bled, distorted version of the truth should transpire through 
servants or meddlesome friends, imperfectly acquainted 
with it, told her she had been the daughter by adoption 
only of her whom they were mourning, and that her own 
mother’s history she might hear at a future time, if she 
wished it ; but she must come to him for this ; and in the 
meantime disregard the hints and whispers of others on 
the subject. 

The revelation was a shock to the young girl, and made 
a lasting impression. It was painful ; and yet, and yet, 
something pleased her in the discovery. Her mother, it 
whispered, had been a more remarkable woman than that. 
Sometimes she let her imagination picture for her this 
mother she had never seen, as some beautiful, proud, pas- 
sionate creature ; then curiosity was checked by the sense 
that together with the confirmation of the truth of her 


PROLOGUE. 


4 * 


fancy portrait would come the fuller knowledge of the 
stain on her birth. 

Not that she had ever been made to feel it. Her adop- 
tion, in infancy, by her father’s wife, the good social stand- 
ing and unimpeachable conventional correctness of that 
excellent lady, had gone far to bury the past, and rehabilitate 
Austin Day’s moral character in the eyes of his judges. It 
suited society to forgive him, if it could decently do so. 
That page of his life was as good as forgotten. His part- 
ner in guilt had been dead twenty years ; he had lived 
down ill-report, and conquered the social distrust of him 
that lapse had created. To rake up the past of a man 
whose whole subsequent life had been free from moral irre- 
gularity would be an excess of Puritanism, nay, un-Christian. 
Then a fresh generation had grown up, less interested in 
the scandals of years ago. Many knew not but that Mar- 
cia was his good lady’s daughter. Received and treated as 
such everywhere, at first for her parents’ sake, Marcia 
had raised her social position from an average to an envia- 
ble one, by dint of her own personal and social merits. 

What was it that had prompted her wish, the other night, 
to know at once the whole truth about her origin ? Per- 
haps the sense of transition in life from an irresponsible to 
a responsible part. 

She mused long and often over the story. The story, 
half the world said, of a designing belle, who made a bril- 
liant match, neglected her poor young husband, flirted with 
half the county, turned young Austin Day’s head, and led 
him on and on until, finding herself seriously compromised 
in the opinion of society, she ran off with him at last, and 
wrecked his life’s promise, till her death, three years later, 
left him free and still young enough to start existence again 
on more reputable lines. 

Said the other half — of a beautiful, high-spirited girl, 
sacrificed to her parents’ ambition, to find out, too late, 
that she was yoked to a worthless partner, who squandered 
her money, drank like a fish, and preserved a shameless 
preference for the society of barmaids and ballet-girls ; 
driven to snatch solace in the perilous sympathy she awoke 
in generous bosoms, till she threw over the mockery of 
her domestic union for the protection of her ardent if mis- 
guided lover. 

It was the latter version, of course, that had been pre- 
sented to Marcia, the living token of the dead romance. 


42 


PROLOGUE, 


Her intelligence filled in the blanks. The knowledge 
sank like a stone to the bottom of her mind, there to lie, 
slightly, but permanently, affecting its currents. 

“ She, my mother, threw away everything for my father. 
And so could I, for a man I loved, as she did him.” 

Marcia, with her distinguished appearance, refined man- 
ner, and womanly intelligence, had no lack of male admir- 
ers. But she expected a good deal of them, they felt ; 
and a mixture of vanity and conscious inferiority kept 
them at a distance. They feared to incur her indifference 
or contempt. She had known so many superior men ; 
men likely to rise, or already eminent ; men of rank and 
wealth, of power and talent. Austin Day’s circle attracted 
such. But the younger generation, the representative men 
of the future, she inclined to judge rather severely. Their 
aims and motives seemed to her shifty and low ; or they 
pretended and boasted that they were. The mercenary 
cant in vogue revolted her. It was a fashion which, like 
other fashions, formed, or deformed rather, those who 
slavishly followed it. Their creed amounted to this : that 
independence of character and conduct were good for in- 
significant country gentlemen, and others in a narrow 
personal sphere; soaring ambitions for conceited incom- 
petence ; whilst all men of prominent ability, in whatever 
line, should virtually turn tradesmen, and, surrendering 
their power to raise and enlighten the minds of the vulgar, 
compete with each other to level down to the low taste of 
the greatest number, the best and swiftest means to the 
one acknowledged end— Profit. Marcia inherited her 
father’s fine gift of discernment, and, besides that there 
was everything in Wilfrid Blake to enamor a young girl’s 
fancy, the natural elevation of mind she perceived in him, 
coupled with his extraordinary dramatic talent, answered 
exactly to the secret demands of her youthfully exalted 
snirit. 

" Successes are of all sorts ; and sometimes those most 
pregnant in results to a man’s future make no stir at the 
time. Wilfrid’s at West Sheen had been decided, even 
brilliant. To what would it lead ? 

“ My fear is that he will be his own implacable enemy 
said Austin Day to his daughter, after commenting on the 
versatility of which, in an irresistibly comic presentment 
of Quince the carpenter in the Midsummer Night's 


PROLOGUE. 


43 


Dream., the Mark Antony of the evening before had yes- 
terday given proof. “ At the outset of life you really 
cannot afford to defy the powers that be, however stupid 
or tyrannical. He is too unconciliating.” 

“ Conciliation is for the weak,” declared Marcia impul- 
sively. “ Diplomacy is the weapon of inferior nations.” 

“ That is all very well for you young people,” Austin 
Day retorted, “ but in getting him an engagement in Lon- 
don, as I hope to do, I shall try diplomacy. I shall get it 
for him, and he won’t keep it three months.” 

“ Have the London people no eyes then, no ears, no 
understandings?” 

“People have tempers,” Austin Day replied, “ and he 
won’t take that into consideration. Listen. Crowe, the 
manager of the Theatre Royal, offered him the part of 
Horatio in a proposed revival of Hamlet. What do you 
think he replied? That when he came out in that play in 
London it would be as the Prince of Denmark.” 

Marcia laughed, evidently delighted. 

“ Aye, aye,” said her father, “ but that means that for 
most of the time he is without an engagement at all.” 

‘‘ Well, he can afford to wait, if he would rather do that 
than lower his flag. One can approve in him what would 
be madness in another, and so you do, whatever you may 
say. Isn’t it refreshing in these time-serving days to meet 
with some one who has the courage of his ambitions? ” 

“ It looks like vanity,” Austin Day objected. 

“ But it isn’t,” rejoined Marcia. “ Father, had he been 
vain, and like the other actors, would he have given up 
Awaking so willingly, with the certainty of a great success, 
for Tasso, with all those long speeches, the chance of ridi- 
cule, and the certainty of falling flat ? ” 

“ Right,’’ Austin Day admitted musingly. “ He holds 
his head mightily high for a beginner, but — I have never 
seen such high promise, in all the course of my experi- 
ence.” 

Marcia smiled radiantly, and bent over her work to con- 
ceal her flush of pleasure and animation. 

Her father’s next remark was less welcome, by the 
association of ideas it called up. 

“ Do you know, little Bertha did very well indeed at the 
rehearsal of Tasso this morning.” 


44 


PROLOGUE, 


“ You have coached her to some purpose, I dare say.*' 
“ She looks so pretty and naive. Timidity is her bane, 
yet to lose it would take something from her charm. The 
typical stage mghiue is the absurdest thing out. Bertha 
is thoroughly unsophisticated and sincere. She deserves 
to please.” 

And she did. Marcia was the first to own it. Petty 
feminine jealousy was foreign to her large, and in some 
respects generous, nature. She liked to conquer, but her 
conquest must be absolute. A lover who could halt 
between her and another was none in her eyes. To 
dispute a man’s preference with a rival was repelling to 
her maiden’s pride. 

Tasso at Sorrento, founded on the well-known story of 
the poet’s return to his home disguised as a shepherd, was 
a poetically conceived little piece, foredoomed to failure in 
the opinion of the best judges. First, it was in blank 
verse, which ensured an obstinate prejudice to be overcome. 
Secondly, as a drama, it was too presumptuously out of 
the order of the day fo command a fair hearing at all, 
coming, as it did, from a next to unknown pen. The long 
speeches, the absence of theatrically telling exits and 
entrances, soon sufficed to damp the faint curiosity of the 
audience. They talked, they looked about, .they cut jokes, 
and when the strong dramatic situation of the piece came, 
no one having followed attentively what preceded it, it 
came too late to avert the fate of the play, of which the 
papers made much fun the next morning. Blank verse ! 
yes, blank of a single comprehensible idea ; the action, 
the motives, confused and unintelligible. The only 
feature which it was possible to recall with pleasure and 
distinctly was Miss Norton’s pleasing appearance as the 
heroine. 

Marcia’s absorbing interest in Carroll’s really admirable 
performance of a thankless task had diverted her thoughts 
from the consideration of the merit or demerit of the play. 
But both she and her father were struck by the boldness, 
the startlingly original character of several ])assagcs. 

Strong, but very eccentric,” concluded Austin Day. 
“ An appearance of genius — I should say a singular 
anomaly. Is there more in it ? ” 

‘‘ Mr. Blake thinks there is,” said Marcia. 


PROLOGUE, 


45 


So much was certain. Tasso at Sorre?tto was unsuc- 
cessful. 

Austin Day was secretly thankful that the author, Sun- 
dorne, in writing permission for the representation, 
had declined — curtly and without assigning any reason — 
his courteous invitation to come and witness it. The 
theatrical inferiority of the lady’s part, the absence of 
claptrap and sentiment, but above all the fact that at 
a first hearing it made some slight demands on the intel- 
ligence of even a cultivated audience, condemned it 
beyond appeal, and if audible signs of disfavor were 
refrained from, it was simply out of consideration for the 
painstaking actors and hearty approval of Bertha’s pic- 
turesque costume. 

Marcia could not shut her ears to the universal com- 
ment — on what a good-looking pair she and young Carroll 
presented together. Not to bracket them thus was im- 
possible, even for Marcia. In all her golden dreams she 
never lost her hold of the most unwelcome realities. 
What young man thrown into those close and constant 
relations that stage collaboration involves, with so young 
and fair a creature — why, even if Bertha were not already 
(as Marcia knew her friend too well not to have divined) 
under the sweet magic of a sentiment which in such 
earnest and tender natures is no experience that repeats 
itself easily — •Well, what man but would drift into flirtation, 
and on to — what chance should determine ? 

Marcia was not vain. She scarcely asked herself if she 
were handsome, or was conscious of designing to show off 
her person to advantage. It was as if some feminine 
intuition had let her know that her charm could neither 
be much enhanced nor disguised by her wearing apparel. 
Her hair was very fine, and her simple fashion of doing it 
becoming, her dress faultless and rich. But put her in 
rags by the wayside. King Cophetua might see there a 
queen in disguise. 

Love had occupied her thoughts less than Bertha’s, or 
than usual with girls of her age. She would not have 
admitted that it was occupying them that Saturday after- 
noon, as she sat on a bencli in the garden of Surrey Lodge, 
laid out Italian fashion — with straight walks and symmetri- 
cal flower plots, only a low white stone wall and young 


46 


PROLOGUE. 


laurel hedge between her and the towing-path by the river 
— thinking of Wilfrid Carroll and her father’s prognosti- 
cations concerning him. Last night had brought the 
performances to a close. Ere to-morrow those whom they 
had drawn together would be scattered far and wide. 


VI. 

Presently, in the distance, two figures came in sight, a 
• man and a woman, sauntering along the raised footpath 
by the riverside. Why did Marcia know directly, whilst 
they were still too far off for positive recognition, that the 
man was Wilfrid Blake, whilst they must draw nearer, 
much nearer, before she saw for certain that his companion 
was Bertha? And why should that stab her? Comrades, 
fellow-artists, with daily interests in common, such a tete- 
d-teie was a natural insignificant occurrence. 

But they were talking very confidentially, very earnestly. 
Bah ! they might be rehearsing a scene in a play. Then 
it must be a love scene, something whispered instantly, 
and Marcia’s heart began to throb violently, her head was 
on fire, her whole being in such a tumult as that calm- 
seeing young person had never experienced. Jealousy? 
Never ! The thofn-bushes and willows hid them now, and a 
momentary impulse said, “ Move to yonder bench under the 
wall, where, when by-and-by they pass, you may hear every 
word spoken. Then you will know." Pride forbade her 
to play spy. Should she rise and go ? Pride forbade that 
also. She would behave as if they were not there, or as 
though what was passing between them could concern her 
no more than the first comer — remain seated on that bench, 
neither averting her shrinking senses from the confirmation 
of her dread, nor straining them to cut short an intolerable 
suspense. Preserve a semblance of indifference, as thpugh 
Wilfrid Blake were no more to her than his brother Robert. 

As they approached, no doubt could live that their dia- 
logue was genuine and serious, nor could the dullest 
spectator have mistaken its import. He was pleading 
eagerly, eloquently, aye, tenderly. Bertha was much 
agitated, tongue-tied, lending a fascinated attention ; her 
countenance half turned from the speaker, and its disturb- 


PROLOGUE. 


47 


ance testifying plainly to his mastery over her emotions. 
A coy maiden’s bashful, part feigned reluctance, startled 
at the passionate sentiment she has evoked, but overjoyed 
at heart. 

Marcia sat there like a figure of stone. Either, had 
they looked up, must have seen her distinctly, behind the 
sparse evergreen foliage. But he was too engrossed by 
the suit he was paying, Bertha too overcome, struggling 
with the evident confusion into which she had been thrown 
by his confession. 

Why so pale, Marcia? Only an illusion broken, a 
chimera fallen, a hope, a dream, proved a self-inflicted 
hoax. 

Bertha preferred to herself. Well. Or, Wilfrid would 
not adventure to court but where victory was certain. A 
coward, then. Marcia felt she had overrated him in her 
imagination, and suffered for it now. She had distinguish- 
ed him in a thousand ways. Had he been worthy of her 
predilection he might have divined it. Either he had 
failed to comprehend the sentiment he inspired in her, or 
deliberately preferred an inferior mate. Like to like, then. 
He was no clairvoyant, and his ambition was bourgeois. 
What sort of a wife will she make, Bertha ? 

A model one, as wives go. Ha, ha ! Wilfrid would live 
and die, not knowing what he had lost, nor what there was 
to lose in the world. In choosing Bertha he stamped him- 
self in Marcia’s sight as a failure, a man no nearer her 
ambition’s standard than the rest. 

' So perish all illusions ! said her undaunted spirit to 
I itself. 

I But this one perished painfully. Long after they had 
passed out of sight she still sat there, conflicting, unyield- 
ing, sworn to master the pain she could not kill, but was 
mortally ashamed of. An hour later, her father, coming 
out, found her there ; he remarked that she was looking 
pale and fatigued. She turned it off as she could. His 
next observation was that he was expecting Blake every 
minute to call to bid them farewell. Well, Marcia felt she 
could meet him and betray nothing. But surely her hero’s 
aspect must have altered for her since the lifting of the 
veil an hour ago. She saw everything at last. She had 
“ fallen in love,” as maidens do, transfigured and idealized 
a piece of common clay, made a hero of one whose way of 


48 


PROLOGUE, 


love and choice of a wife proved him nothing of the sort. 
And here he comes ! “lam glad,” thought Marcia. She 
wished to see him, now that her eyes were opened. 

She bent her head coldly in answer to his salute, making 
the fact that they had met before, that morning, an excuse 
for not shaking hands ; and encountered the quick pene- 
trating look he darted at her with perfect immobility. 

Whilst he talked of theatrical matters with Austin Day, 
Marcia watched them with her clear grey luminous eyes, 
eyes that cast a spell — no baneful, unholy spell, they 
seemed rather to shed a protective and auspicious influence. 
She was fighting to subdue, to rise superior to her girlish 
weakness, to be herself, and just to Bertha, her friend, and 
to Wilfrid. 

In her preoccupation she had lost the thread of their 
dialogue, hearing their voices as if at a distance, till sud- 
denly recalled to herself by seeing that her father was 
leaving them, summoned in-doors by some business 
visitor. The last words of his interrupted speech came 
back on her ears ; his grave genial comment to his young 
guest on his recent exhibition : 

“You have a great future before you I ” 

He was gone now ; but Wilfrid stood still by Marcia’s 
side, where she sat without stirring or looking round, her 
eyes fixed on the eddying river, with the little boats moored, 
seen through the fringe of willows and poplars. He 
seemed to know she was thinking of him, and it stung 
her. 

“ A great future 1 ” he repeated, with wistful irony. 

“ Who knows ? ” 

“ My father is a true prophet,” said Marcia lightly. 

“ I have a friend with a taste for astrology who predicted 
as much from my horoscope,” he returned likewise. 

“ Only he augured less well of my other fortune — my fire- 
side fortune, as he called it.” 

“ My father’s lore does not extend to that,” said Marcia j 
quietly. She felt Wilfrid’s eyes on her face. His look 
could pierce, and thrilled her most painfully, she vividly 'I 
resenting its power to do so. Her whole frame was wrung 
by a tormenting excitement. But with a marvellous self- j 
control she added playfully, “ At least you have been put 
on your guard.” ;‘j 


PROLOGUE. 


49 


“ Ah, then you think it would be reckless audacity to 
defy such a prophet of evil,” he let fall musingly, but with 
undisguised significance. 

He wanted to make her his confidante ! For this stroke 
she was unprepared ; but she met it : 

“ You must seek the answer to that in Bertha’s eyes,” 
she said, with such sisterly calm and grave sweetness that 
she admired herself for an actress. 

“Bertha?” he repeated, in amazement. 

“Of course,” thought Marcia, “at my knowing their 
j secret.” 

“She and I have been friends ever since I remember,” 
she said hastily. “ Forgive me for naming her. I am 
' interested in what happens to her, poor child.” 

I Do you mean Bertha Norton ? ” he asked incredulous- 
ly. “ Has she ” 

“She has never spoken of you to me,” Marcia inter- 
posed quickly. “ It was indiscreet of me to name her. 
Your secret is safe with me, if it is a secret, as now appears. 
Then it was fortunate it was I, and not another, who was 
i sitting here, when, just now, you and she passed by.” 

I Wilfrid’s features lit up with amusement and a lurking 
exultation. Marcia felt discomfited for the moment, and 
quite at a loss. 

“ Ah, you saw us pass together an hour ago,” he said, 
“ I, the speaker, pressing my suit, urging it ardently, and 
in every key. Talking of what? Of love and marriage ? 

; So you thought ; and you were not wrong.” 

He paused an instant ; it may be he enjoyed her pain- 
ful bewilderment. This turn was so unexpected, it had 
routed the proud girl’s self-possession ; and he tasted the 
sweets of conquest in this involuntary betrayal of feeling. 
Then he spoke, suddenly seating himself on the bench by 
her side : 

“ Not my love ; not my marriage. I was speaking for 
my brother. Poor Rob ; he is seriously attached to her ; 
but his diffidence prevents him from doing himself justice. 
Well, I promised to speak for him ; to try and see if she 
could not be got to listen to one of the best fellows in the 
kingdom.” 

Marcia heard in silence. Extreme joy, for the brief 
mornent that it endures, is more confusing than pain, as a 
passion life affords us less practice in controlling. The 


50 


PROLOGUE. 


blood came rushing into her cheeks ; she trembled with a 
terrible eagerness : and could not have opened her lips 
to speak without betraying everything. Delicious to her 
was the sound of Wilfrid’s voice, nearer now than it was 
before. 

I told my astrologer he was a fool. He would have it 
that my utmost luck would be more than outweighed by 
disappointment in love. I laughed at him. Break my 
heart for it ? Go on loving where I meet with no return ? 
Girls do that, not men. So at least I told him.” 

“ Love, then,” said Marcia softly, “ will never hold but 
the second place in your life, second to your art your 
ambition ? ” 

She put the question fearlessly, intuitively sure of her 
answer. 

“ That love which could hold the first j)lace would include 
the rest ; not conflicting, but fused, indivisible.” 

“ They say,” said Marcia, with a delicate derision in her 
tone, “ that an artist should have no wife.” 

“ They lie,” said Wilfrid fervently. “ Who can love like 
him, so humanly and so sacredly at once ? Who can 
derive so much from perfect companionship? Perfect^ 
though. For if I, having once seen — my love — my wife, 
if she will so have it — and she will not — then indeed it 
were better to forswear those life vows, and live and die 
alone.” 

“ And if she will ? ” murmured Marcia inaudibly. 

“ Then is he of all men the most blessed ! ” he answered 
low. 

Well said,” cried a voice within her. There was neither 
clasping of hands nor changing of eyes at that grave mo- 
ment. It was enough that their spirits had touched, to 
find themselves in perfect accord — enough for one day. 
Both were too deeply agitated to venture to depart from 
the tone of gravity, of austerity almost, that had distin- 
guished the love scene. For each had doubted the other’s 
real feeling, and the double unmasking left the lovers 
mute and motionless with an exquisite surprise. 

When Wilfrid spoke again it was not to whisper sweet 
nothings. He said : 

If I never win the place I aspire to — if your father ^ 
should here prove a false prophet — what then, Marcia ? ” 


PROLOGUE. 


SI 

“ Say if the river fails to find its way to the sea,” Marcia 
responded, in a tone that thrilled him from head to foot ; 
a tone neither he nor another had ever heard from her lips. 
She saw him pale with emotion, when at length her eyes 
sought his face, and a new light sprang into them as she 
answered with the sweetest enthusiasm, youthful high 
spirit, and loving faith. Together — I am not afraid — 

nothing but fear could hinder you. Have you any left? ” 

“ None.” 

The touch of his fingers on hers, of his lips on her 

hand Marcia was superlatively happy 

Her head grew dizzy, she turned white ; it was Nature’s 
revenge for her previous repression. 

Then her father’s voice was heard calling, and Marcia, 
with a strong effort, regained her self-command. She rose 
and walked towards the house, Wilfrid keeping by her side, 
neither daring just then to admit the full sense of what they 
were to each other. And Austin Day, as he watched them 
approaching, divined from their uplifted faces what had 
passed. It thrilled him with a slight shock, though it was 
not unanticipated, and in the main it delighted him. 


i He had always expected, and desired for her own sake, 
i that his daughter should marry early. Himself one who 
, found his natural element in the general society whose idol 
• he was, he lived less dependent than other men on angels 
^ at home, and was prepared to part with Marcia the more 
I cheerfully for the sympathy he felt for her choice. He had 
'irom the first conceived for Wilfrid that kind of affectionate 
' fancy that fathers to whom Heaven has denied sons, or 
I sons in any way worthy of their sire, entertain sometimes 
i' towards a young fellow who better answers to their pater- 
I nal dreams. Carroll’s actual position was anything but 
I brilliant, but, after witnessing his performances at West 
|! Sheen, Austin Day would have staked his salvation on his 
1 ultimate exceptional success. Lastly, there was something 
l| romantic about the betrothal, and Austin Day, for all his 
i'grey hairs and fifty years, had romantic proclivities as 
I ineradicable as, in Don Quixote, his fondness for knight- 
I errantry. The young couple’s future was uncertain, but 
1 its promise was of no common, no mean order. 


52 


PROLOGUE, 


I 


“ Marcia, I am so glad ! ” 

It was Bertha speaking, when she heard the news, and 
Marcia, searching her countenance, saw that she spoke 
sincerely, and could rejoice unselfishly in her friend’s 
happiness. Her heart smote her. Had their positions 
been reversed, could she thus have put herself and her I 
wounded sentiments out of count ? ■ 

But Bertha, though her girlish enthusiasm for Carroll’s 
talent was nearly allied to another feeling, had never',, 
deluded herself, or regarded her hope that had been de- j 
stroyed as anything but the mere day-dream that it was. * 
She was more prone to self-depreciation than to over-con- 
fidence. Marcia, in her eyes, seemed incalculably more 
worthy of her hero than herself. Jealousy and bitterness 
found no ready soil in her single-hearted, disinterested 
nature. She could be Marcia’s friend, and her husband’s • 
too. And none should ever know of the jewel of ideal \ 
love that had gleamed one moment in her heart, but which v, 
was now to be buried for ever. . 

Women folk are proverbially provoking, but men, when 
they try, can beat them at this, as in most other things. 
Wilfrid took some credit to himself for not quarrelling with 
his brother Rob, the only person who grudged him a 
pleasant word of sympathy. 

‘‘ She is marrying you for ambition.” was all he said, 
when he heard of the engagement. 

‘‘ Well,” said Wilfrid good-humoredly, “ is it there, do 
you think, that I am bound to disappoint her ? ” 

“ Quite the contrary. Only I’m old-fashioned ; I prefer 
the old pattern in an affair of this kind.” 

“ Oh, I know,” said Wilfrid impatiently ; “ a wife who 
will sit at my feet, and treat all the stupid things I say as 
texts of Scripture, and swear it is to-morrow when it is to- 
day, because I tell her so.” i 

“ Well,’’ said Robert provokingly, she might do worse, i 
in my opinion.” i| 

“ Worse than prove herself idiotic or insincere ? Why, 
Rob, you’ve turned woman-hater all of a sudden ? ” 

“ Oh, you’re in love,” growled the woman-hater crossly ; 

“ its no use talking.” 

“ And so are you,” retorted Marcia’s betrothed, “ or 
you wouldn’t be so crusty. Rob,” he resumed, changing 
his tone, “ I can’t make Bertha out at all. She seems so 


PROLOGUE, 


53 

soft, and is so stand-offish. Still, I think perhaps when 
she knows you better ” 

“ No more of that,” interposed the young doctor sepul- 
chrally. “ I’ve made a fool of myself there for nothing, 
but I should be a bigger one to hang on now I know it. 
And perhaps it’s as well ; since I have nothing to marry on, 
not even prospects, like you.” 

“ Prospects are chaff,” said Wilfrid, seriously. “ But 
you will understand that I am bound to see that something 
comes of mine. Austin Day will give his daughter five 
hundred a year.” 

Robert kept his understanding to himself. Wilfrid 
might make it a delicate point of honor not to live on his 
wife’s money, and disturb himself accordingly. To his 
brother the fact that it was there for them to live on brought 
comfort only, partly reconciling him to a match which from 
a mixture of fraternal jealousy, personal prejudice, and the 
general fractiousness of a rejected suitor, he had regarded 
with aversion. 

The wedding was fixed for the New Year. Six weeks 
later, Carroll, thanks mainly to the good offices of Austin 
Day, was announced to make his first appearance before a 
London audience as Alfred Evelyn, in Bulwer Lytton’s 
then popular drama of Money. 


END OF PROLOGUE. 








y'./ •* ♦ 

wjr' Vi V''^» 



1 Ln.* I# * 

. '■■ . ,*■ l.V^ 




- ‘ as \ 


4 


y'-i'r ' "^ ^ 
" t -Vf*' U:“’ 


^ • . * 

»• 4 • 



J 


•< 





<^' . > 

II 


k i 


>•. ‘I*:-.- 


Ill • » 


VT 






FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


55 


CHAPTER 1. 

THE SHELSLEY HERMIT. 

There are character-growths that seem utterly to invali- 
date the current theories of human development ; person- 
alities that obtrude themselves in impudent contradiction 
to the dogmas of scientific men, whose interloping in the 
world flatly contradicts all the laws of heredity, as does 
their survival those of natural selection. Melchisedecks 
of humanity, without parentage or descent, if we count by 
spiritual affinity. 

Accidents, “freaks of nature,” we say. Such a natural 
miracle was the springing up of the spiritually-minded, 
unearthly creature, Shelley, a scion of an English country 
squire’s middle-class household ; a very changeling, whose 
idiosyncrasies must have perished, had they been perish- 
able, in so foreign an atmosphere. Schubert was another ; 
the last but one of the fourteen encumbrances born to a 
poor drudge of a schoolmaster by the respectable cook he 
married at nineteen. From such prosiest origin, and, all 
his short life long, amid the same narrow, sordid surround- 
ings, the most marvellously imaginative and productive of 
tone-poets could rise and thrive. 

Arthur Sundorne was one of the many who from the 
first are at open war with the state to which they are born, 
who will not adapt themselves to the conditions under 
which they have to live. Also one of the few whose 
hands strengthen in the barren, endless strife of one 
against the world ; the rebellious organism prevailing so 
far over the tyranny of circumstances that these remain 
impotent to alter or check its growth. It creates for 
itself an atmosphere of combat, and invents a way there 
to breathe and to flourish. 

His forefathers, for three generations back at least, had 
been men of trade. His sire was a smug linen draper in a 
fair way of business at Croydon, but died early, and this 
son, though he liked money, was better at getting rid of 


5 ^ 


I^AMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


than at getting it. He received a fair commercial educa- 
tion, but an evil report from his schoolmasters, as an idle 
and singularly insubordinate subject. The pedagogues 
who sermonized him on his misdoings he scandalized by 
taunting them back with the deficiencies of their teaching 
and the absurdity of their discipline — there were weak 
points in both. He read enormously — history, poetry, 
romances — bu^ neglected his regular studies, and was 
distanced in the classes by the merest little parrots, well 
crammed and primed to order. He acquitted himself so 
badly in the business to which on leaving school he was 
put, vexing the soul of his employer by his shameless 
negligence and irregular hours, that his uncle and guardian 
was thankful, when the youth was one-and-twenty, to 
hand over to him — he having just quarrelled and parted 
with his principal — the very small sum that constituted 
his paternal inheritance, and wash his hands of so unprom- 
ising a charge. Not, however, without a round lecture of 
solemn warning and good advice. A Sundorne, whose 
father and grandfather had both been shopkeepers of solid 
respectability, whose brothers were treading in their steps, 
his sisters well married to commercial agents with snug 
prospects, to disgrace himself thus ! Had it been for 
drinking and gambling, that, though deplorable, would at 
least have been intelligible. Brandy and the racecourse 
have found easy victims before now in the best regulated 
tradesmen’s families. But the senseless frivolity of poring 
day and night over poetry and plays — it was even rumored 
of writing them — why, it was sufficient in a Sundorne, and 
a young man with his living to earn, to warrant clapping 
the doors of Bedlam upon him. 

The nephew had no hesitation what to do. He came 
up to London with three plays and his patrimony in his 
pocket, having roughly calculated how long the sum in 
hand would last him. Not very long, for he intended to 
avail himself of all the advantages of town, including its 
expensive pleasures. But it would go hard with him, he 
considered, if in the meantime he did not succeed in 
placing one at least of his three dramas, and thus laying 
the corner-stone of his future. The successful playwright 
reaps rich rewards. His own bent was unalterable, and 
though that he was following it to his ruin was a prospect 
as certain as death, it being likewise indefinitely distant, 
he was too young to distress himself about it. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


57 


It is now some five-and-twenty years since the manager 
of a leading London theatre received the MSS. of a 
historical drama, together with a letter from the author, 
pointing out that the subject, that of Joan of Arc, had 
never received worthy dramatic treatment, expressing in 
emphatic terms the writer’s disapproval and contempt for 
the popular pieces then occupying the English stage, and 
expatiating on the good that might ensue, if he, the mana- 
ger, would join with the author of /oau of Arc in initiating 
a complete reform, aiming at the revival of the taste for 
the higher drama. 

The letter was destroyed, unread ; the play returned to 
the author, without comment, after he had called for it 
three times. A second manager was personally waited on 
by the aspirant, and jocosely advised him to turn his 
tragedy into a burlesque. Other like efforts were attended 
with like ominous results. They had not the smallest 
effect in depressing Sundorne, merely enlightening him a 
little as to the magnitude of the resistance he had got to 
overcome. That he would surmount it he never doubted. 
That these gentlemen could be right in the main, and he 
wrong, was an idea that never entered his contemplations. 
Still he grew daily more dissatisfied with his immature 
productions, and proposed to improve upon them,, though 
not in the direction pointed out by the manager. 

An indefatigable literary student, he grudged himself 
nothing he fancied necessary or expedient to his intellec- 
tual expansion or that of his experience. He was no 
anchorite by temperament, and spent freely. He scraped 
acquaintance with some of the younger members of lite- 
rary and theatrical coteries, ambitious spirits like himself, 
confident in their unmade reputations ; and with others 
who had already woken up from their dreams of greatness 
to their actual final position as hangers-on to the great 
men about whom they chattered — hack writers by trade ; 
in their talk the most fastidious of dilettanti. 

These gave him an ear. To such, in club or restaurant, 
he would descant liberally on his ideas and projects. 
They listened, caught by his eloquence of conviction, in- 
terested for the moment — as you listen to some fascinat- 
ing chimerical speculation — a tale by Jules Verne, where 
trips to the stars and submarine voyages are described 
with a strict-seeming scientific accuracy which compels 


58 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


your faith, until the book is shut. Sundorne’s animated 
manner and force of self-assertion impressed his profes- 
sional acquaintances, but not lastingly, or to the least 
practical purpose. In fact they could do nothing to help 
him. His nature could not profit by such help as they 
could render. Clip a hawk’s wings and help it to climb ! 
One who had influence with a popular burlesque actress 
and manageress promised him a trial for an extravaganza, 
if he would write one, advising this merely as a means of 
getting a first footing on the boards. He actually agreed ; 
but the piece never got beyond rehearsal, where it was 
damned with shouts of derisive laughter, a fate it richly 
deserved. 

In a very few years his little capital was exhausted ; his 
course had not been in the paths of the breacj-winning, he 
was heavily in debt besides, and the self-prepared ordeal 
he now entered upon was one of extreme and unmitigated 
poverty, with the promise of its indefinite duration. 
Without relinquishing the studies, the researches he 
deemed necessary for perfecting and expanding his powers 
of production, he must nevertheless slave the working-day 
long, for a bare subsistence, at tasks the most abhorrent to 
him ; re-write, in grammar and style fit for publication, 
the novels of fashionable amateur authoresses, translate, 
copy, perform all the most menial offices of literature, and 
perf^orming them very ill, never earn more than just enough 
to keep body and soul together, whilst he, his other self, 
worked and waited. 

In his direst straits he never dreamt of rejoining his 
native clan. They had helped him with money more than 
once, but to no purpose, as they now pointed out, de- 
clining further supplies unless he would help himself by 
renouncing literature and devoting himself to business. 
Surely he needed no additional proof of the ruinous mis- 
take he had made. His flat refusal, arrogantly worded, 
completed the estrangement. His family ceased to hold 
communication with him, sorrowfully awaiting the day, 
probably near at hand, when they would hear of him next 
— at the workhouse or police courts. 

His pride hardened under humiliations ; his energy rose 
in the face of repeated failure ; his resolve, his ambition 
strengthened under the chill pressure of want and obscu- 
rity and disparagement, as that of others thrives under the 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


59 


sunshine of favor, the stimulus of success. The Last Man 
was not more alone than he presently became, through 
his obstinacy, or his inability to adapt himself to the emer- 
gencies of a very common position. Year after year 
dragged by, of hateful toil by day, arduous head work by 
night, and sharp privation — a term which, though the end 
of it found his mind vigorous as ever, his frame seemingly 
turned to iron by the hardships he had endured, was cal- 
culated to tell on the very springs of constitutional vitality. 

Ten years of close observation of the London stage, 
from before and behind the curtains, and of literary life, 
and his practical experience was complete. The result — 
a disgust, amounting to abhorrence, for the whole august 
body, managers, actors, and authors, as cheap-jacks, 
mountebanks, and parasites. 

A pittance of a few pounds a year, that now fell to him 
through the death of a relative, enabled him to throw up 
his hack work without facing the alternative of positive 
starvation. He shook the dust of literary London off his 
feet, and took a cottage on a Surrey common, where, freed 
from the detested yoke, he hoped to launch thunderbolts 
that should force people to begin thinking about him, and 
convert them finally to those exalted ideas of stage reform 
he had at the first set before himself, and, up to the last, 
steadily kept in view. 

There he had since resided. Each year had brought its 
fresh crop of ventures, and a fresh harvest of rebuffs. 
Such faint acknowledgment as had here and there been 
vouchsafed him was more mortifying than silence, by its 
ludicrous disproportion to his anticipations and self- 
deemed deserts. “Thus far shall thou go,” said the judg- 
ing world, “and no farther.” His sworn task was to give 
it the lie. The end of the so-called golden age of life found 
him poor, isolated as ever, sunk in his profitless dreams 
and studies, firm in his disastrous self-belief. 

And who at the point when he comes into our story but 
must see in him, as he emerges from his shabby cottage 
for his accustomed walk along Shelsley common, a signal 
instance of the Disappointed Man ? He had declined to 
suit himself to conditions he could not alter, to seek to hit 
the public taste or defer to the judgment of its appointed 
leaders when this clashed with his own. He had defied 
fashions and popular tendencies and local authority. As 


6o 


FA MO C/S OR INFAMOUS. 


an inevitable consequence he had been stranded. He had 
spent all his best years in mighty struggles, and struggled 
in vain ; and his genuine gifts been as completely wasted 
as though he had been on a desert island. He is perfectly 
aware of it ; and the knowledge is a heavy burden that 
grows and grows, threatening to press him to death at the 
last. 

At five-and-forty he appeared farther from success than 
at five-and-twenty. He had forfeited patronage by an 
arrogance offensive to men who had made their mark from 
one who had not. He had dropped out of sight and mind 
of his early literary associates. Wiser in their generation, 
they had docked their extravagant ambitions, agreed, since 
they could never get what they liked, to like what 
they could get. Sundorne stood aloof from the race 
altogether. The fact had at length been impressed upon 
him that no existing manager would look at his dramatic 
essays, and at times he saw there a life-long clog to the full 
exercise of his art, such as might forbid its ever getting 
beyond the experimental stage. He had contrived to 
print one or two at his own expense, so outrunning his 
meagre resources, that Austin Day’s invitation to West 
Sheen, on the occasion of the performance of Tasso at 
Sorrento^ had found him literally without a shilling or the 
means of borrowing one towards defraying the expense of 
the journey. But these booklets had failed to attract 
notice in prominent quarters, except as good material 
for smart articles by sportive reviewers. Tasso, the sole 
exception, had been praised somewhere discriminately by 
Austin Day, but on its double trial on the stage had failed 
egregiously, said the general verdict of the press. That 
was now six years ago, and no attempt to revive it had 
been made. The name of Sundorne was worse than un- 
known, a danger signal to dealers in intellectual wares, 
caterers for easily-won, immediate popularity. Profes- 
sionals, press, public, all were against him. And he re- 
mained as essentially unmoved by it all as a planet’s 
course by the storm-clouds and vapors that obscure it 
from our sight. 

Although the disappointed include the overwhelming 
majority of the human race, there was some feature in 
Sundorne that stamped him, even to the scoffers, as a type 
apart. The personal impression he produced — barring his 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


6i 


aosurd pretensions — clashed with his ignominious lot. 
Even the dull instincts of his rural neighbors, with whom 
he had no more in common than with the geese on the 
green, were aware of some not altogether ridiculous quality 
in that strange lonely figure, to the sight of which they 
were now well accustomed. In sordid poverty he yet 
commanded respect. That his outlandish threadbare garb 
and odd manners and habits never provoked open insult 
was wonderful enough, in a rustic community where 
eccentricity is baited like a badger. The gossip ran 
among the resident gentry that he was a man of great 
intellectual attainments, but queer in the head. He roused 
their curiosity, but he resented condescension, and their 
kindly advances were bluntly repelled. He moved among 
his neighbors like an alien, unable, because unwilling, to 
fraternize with rich or poor. 

The wind blew in his face, as he struck across the waste 
of sand and heath. The grey gloom of the lowering sky, 
the chilly gusts, the bleak monotony of the wild wide 
landscape, might have depressed the blithest spirit. They 
could add nothing to the heavy darkness, the morose pes- 
simism of his mood ; no more than gay sunshine and the 
sight of the apple-blossom can take from it. 

A profound and bitter sense of the injustice, the falsity 
of the world overflowed in him as he went. The meanest 
laborers’ families, whom he saw at tea through the open 
doors of their hovels, might find in him an object to pity. 
They have tasted more human enjoyment than he ; why, 
the very fowls and brutes upon the common have more 

successfully fulfilled the ends to which they were born 

pretty identical with those of the majority of their lords, 
in Sundorne’s opinion. Because he planted his standard 
high, a born leader, not a follower, refused to prostitute 
or fritter away his abilities in pandering to a deteriorate 
age, corrupting still further what was corrupt before, 
striving instead to show a more excellent way — for this he 
must incur a heavier penalty than the law can find to in- 
flict on pests to society. That splendid ambition, those 
grand, noble desires, inducing a fortitude, constancy, and 
passionate endeavor nothing short of heroic — here then 
was their inevitable outcome ; loneliness, penury, fettering 
hindrances, obloquy, oblivion, his portion, for youth and 
the prime of manhood — for life, says a voice within. He 


62 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


was so constituted as to feel their sting to the last extremity, 
whilst he never ceased to court them. Like Dante’s souls 
in torment ; those maimed and wretched shades, pursuing 
their dismal, unbroken round of pain, their wounds closing 
only to be reinflicted by the sword of the fiend set there 
to execute the law of retribution. Sundorne’s mental 
fibre was of some stuff* that strokes, mostly mortal, cannot 
kill, nor arrest its working, nor relax into self-pity for vast 
and vain efforts, mutilated hopes, and unappeased desires. 
New limbs spring forth — new hopes, new powers, with re- 
newed ability to act, to suffer. Pride was his crime ; and the 
criminal is unrepentant. But there is one enemy ahead to 
which the master-mind must succumb, just like any idiot 
or drone : Death ; and two-thirds of life’s sands are run. 
Dead, he becomes a quarry for moralist jackals to feed on. 
Behind him lie the long years, barren of joy ; and before 
him a more sinister prospect — of the slow, inevitable 
decline, the waning of an existence like the day he saw 
ending now, a day which has had no visible sun to set, a 
sky of clouds all blurred and colorless, the dismal features 
fading into cold grey twilight, then buried in darkness ; the 
grave of suffering unrecorded, of superhuman exertions un- 
requited, and achievements hid. 

A light, luxuriously-appointed barouche passed down 
the road as he crossed it, occupied by a young-looking 
couple whom Sundorne knew by sight, and raising a fresh 
train of bitter reflections. 

Cecil Mainwaring, lord of the manor here, and his 
pretty little French wife. There was a man who might 
have played Maecenas to the thinker’s Virgil, King Frederic 
to his Voltaire, had he had a mind. That pale, paralytic- 
looking young fellow was enormously wealthy, with a bare 
remnant of personal power left for enjoying his worldly 
estate. “ Why is it that the rich never do anything with 
their wealth worth the doing,” thought Sundorne as they 
drove by, “ anything grand, kingly? ” 

Perhaps they expected him to bow. He did not, being 
no respecter of persons. Why should he doff to his land- 
lord, any more than to the gypsy tinker just gone by? He 
owed him nothing, except, just then, his rent. By right 
— moral, ideal right — he, Sundorne, should be lodged in 
the great house yonder, instead of that amiable vaurien, 
who h^d arnus^d himself into crippledom at thirty. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


63 


Sundorne was mistaken in supposing himself overlooked 
by the invalid in the carriage, to whom, on the contrary, 
he was an object of no small interest. Both that gentleman 
and his lady were hard-up for distraction sometimes. 

“ That fellow’s a curiosity, upon my word ! ” drawled 
the pale young man, laughing feebly. 

Madame agreed. She always did. Yes, he was drdle^ 
toque., she suggested, tapping her forehead prettily. 

“ Toqut or not, I should like some day to have a talk 
with him. I wonder if it is true what they say of him — 
that he taught himself Latin and Greek, and God knows 
what besides, and knows all Shakespeare and Milton by 
heart." 

“ Dieu ejaculated his wife, appalled. 

“ Do you know, it would amuse me to have him to 
dinner? " 

“ Ask him then, mon ami,'' she rejoined pleasantly. 
Even Shakespeare and Milton might be borne ; anything 
for a break in the lifelong tcte-d-tetew'wh. a querulous semi- 
invalid that was her lot. “You can show him your charm- 
ing verses," she added cleverly. 

Mainwaring was a poet, too, with at least one poet’s 
attribute, — vanity. The world was a stranger to his effu- 
sions, but verse-writing was a fad of his whose indulgence 
afforded him a keen self-complacency and pleasure he was 
yet ashamed to derive from scribbling, which his aristo- 
cratic proclivities forbade him to treat seriously. It was 
to him what the love of dress is to middle-aged women. 
His desire to make Sundorne’s acquaintance was prompted 
partly by the vision of introducting himself as a rival for 
Parnassus. 

“ But would he come, I wonder," he mused aloud. 

“ Come ? ’’ echoed Fanny Mainwaring, puzzled. “ Why, 
mon ami, to be sure." 

“ They tell queer stories about him. He’s a monstrous 
idea of his dignity. He snubbed Colonel Arkwright, who 
fancied he might find in him a cheap tutor for his little 
boy — sent back his letter, saying he knew of no school 
usher of that name.’’ 

She laughed. “ I heard that the grocer, called the 
twentieth time for his account, and was told he ought to 
be content with the honor of having a poet for a qus^ 
tomer.” 


64 


FAMOUS OR ///FAMOUS. 


Her husband chimed in with her laugh. “ But I like 
his Tasso at Sorrento, and shall tell him so,” he stated 
gravely, as though the seal of his approval left an author 
nothing further to desiderate. “ I’ll ask him for Thursday 
week,” he decided. “ That will give me time to finish 
Ginevra ” — his latest composition. 

“ Ah, if that strange bear of a man should be of use ! ” 
the little wife was thinking. “ Now Cecil will be occupied 
and happy for several days with his poem : and the visitor 
will be something to talk and laugh about for the days 
afterwards.” 

Their carriage rolled in at the park gates, just as a heavy 
downpour of rain, gathering all day, burst over the shel- 
terless common. Sundorne reached his comfortless dwell- 
ing wet through. He admitted himself. The deaf old 
woman who did for him, and whose chief function was to 
scare off duns, had left, as usual. His scanty, frugal supper 
— he had never, except for the briefest interludes, known 
more than a hermit’s subsistence — would have been indig- 
nantly rejected by a casual, much more by a convict. He 
often let meal time pass until, as now, he suddenly found 
himself in an advanced stage of exhaustion. He ate hastily ; 
but the revival of physical energy was merely increased 
consciousness of deplorable conditions. 

Never had his home — the word was mockery — presented 
an aspect quite so dismally wretched. Books it held in 
plenty, but his stores of learning, his high culture, seemed 
of no more avail to better his condition than Crusoe’s 
money bags on the wreck. The room was cold and damp ; 
the window panes broken by boys throwing stones on the 
common ; the fire was out, the oil low in the ill-kept lamp, 
which nevertheless emitted a powerful smell of kerosene. 
Wind and wet entered freely under the door, whose ill- 
seasoned wood had split ; the blind was broken ; the wall- 
paper discolored by mildew, making it more hideous than 
it was before. Thrift, and the devotion of somebody’s 
whole time and attention to creature comforts, might have 
softened the picture ; but Sundorne lived in the clouds. 

A flap on the floor announced the evening’s post ; the 
letters thrust by the carrier’s hand through the lattice, that 
would not shut in wet weather. 

Duns, chiefly ; then an address in a hand strange tc 
him j stranger still, a woman’s writing, he thought. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


65 


Opening it, he read as follows : 

“ Sir, 

“ It is proposed, with your kind permission, to revive Tasso at Sorrento 
at a Benefit Matinee at the Theatre Royal, on Wednesday week. I 
have had the privilege of performing in it on previous occasions, and 
have long desired and hoped some day to secure for it the opportunity 
of that favorble hearing to which it is entitled. In the arrangements 
connected with the performanee I shall be glad to have your suggestions 
to follow. Should you be able to come to London, I hope you will 
give me the honor of making your personal acquaintance. I should 
be pleased at any time to see you at my house, by appointment. 

‘‘Faithfully yours, 

“ Wilfrid Carroll Blake.” 

The signature was in a different hand ; the letter had 
been penned by an amanuensis, probably the actor’s wife. 

Sundorne, as he read, had a gleam of satisfaction. Not 
the grateful sense of a gift received ; it came rather like 
the restitution of lost or stolen property. He had seen 
Carroll, whose advance in his profession during the six 
years since the now forgotten Memorial performances at 
West Sheen had been rapid and brilliant, and who was now 
one of the most successful actors on the London stage ; 
he appreciated his versatile talents and approved his style 
of art. Pity the fellow was only a player, presumably 
without either the funds or other qualifications necessary 
to embark in a great theatrical undertaking designed to 
revive the glories of the English drama ; that is, to put 
Sundorne’s compositions on the stage. Carroll, now a star, 
might attract audiences to a play of an d priori unpopular 
nature — Tasso^ for instance, as he clearly expected. Sun- 
dorne despised this former production of his now ; per- 
suaded that he had immeasurably surpassed it. 

As he took up his pen to write his reply, his eye fell on 
an unopened packet — the manuscript of a much more 
recent composition ; a poetical drama received back yes- 
terday from the publisher, with what he accounted grossly 
insulting comments, and a refusal to share the expense of 
printing it. He never attempted now to get his plays 
taken on the stage. 

“ Sir,” he wrote, “ I give my consent to your request to 
produce Tasso at Sorrento. I have heard that your 
rendering of the leading part shows great appreciation of 
the author’s intention. But the notice being so short, my 

5 


66 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


only course is to leave the stage arrangements in your 
hands, as it is most improbable we should agree about 
them. 

“ I take this opportunity of forwarding to you King 
Rupert^ a drama to which I should desire to draw your 
attention, and which it appears to me might compare 
favorably with some plays now running on the London 
boards.” 

He walked out into the darkness,, unconscious of the 
pelting rain, and dropped the letter and parcel into the 
post, musing : 

“ If something should come of this ? If the tide should 
be on the turn ? ” 

The thought did not quicken his pulse. He had thought 
it too often during the last twenty years. The answer 
was always the same : 

“Not yet,” till the conviction had settled down upon 
him : 

“ It will come when I am dead. Another generation of 
men must be born first.” 

That come it must, was for him the everlasting certainty. 
The contempt and neglect of his fellows had produced ab- 
solutely no impression on his self-faith. As little did the 
disguised King Alfred doubt of his royalty, when jeered at 
by the cottager’s wife ; or Apollo of his divinity, when he 
walked the earth as a shepherd, and his master threatened 
to sell him as a slave. His infatuation was his life, and 
indestructible apart from it. Should his turn come, he has 
a score to settle with the world and fate. 


CHAPTER II. 

Wilfrid’s wife. 

The same evening, towards nine o’clock, Marcia was 
preparing to go and meet her husband at the theatre. 

A glance at her, as she stands before the glass, arraying 
herself with neither more nor less care than any other 
handsome woman in London, and you can guess at the 
outline, so far, of her married life ; at all events of her 
husband’s professional career. A cheerful history : of six 


FAMOUS OR IMFAMOUS. 


67 


years’ fortunate advance, of victory all along the line, of 
happy gifts happily applied, of energy recruited by each 
fresh hope fulfilled, and crowned by such signal success 
as it falls to the lot of few, even of the highly gifted, to 
accomplish. All Marcia’s dreams of what Wilfrid might 
become, all Austin Day’s flattering predictions,' had been 
amply verified. How were poor Robert Blake’s croakings 
silenced and forgotten ! Steady had been Carroll’s rise to 
fame, eminent his present position as dramatic artist could 
desire. 

The public — his remarkable talent once acknowledged 
— saw nothing remarkable in his prosperity. Given such 
first-rate ability, and will not its hearty recognition, a quick 
rise to the top of your profession, a liberal salary, a fancy 
house, friends everywhere, choice of leading parts, and 
discrimination to choose wisely, follow spontaneously and 
for certain, as the sugar-plum follows the penny you drop 
into the automatic machine ? A simple faith, still alive, 
whilst its flat contradiction meets us at every turn, show- 
ing how genius, in poor humanity, is mostly like a sword 
in the hands of a child, likelier to play the mischief with 
the sword-bearer than to do execution elsewhere. Young 
geniuses in plenty, in every line, at least equally gifted 
with Carroll, had rusted out those six years in obscurity 
and indolence, or, betrayed into excess, prepared to end 
prematurely in shameful misery or a mad-house, an object 
of pity and contempt to every well-conditioned dunce; 
or, their finer qualities dulled by the treacherous caress of 
material prosperity, were subsiding, soddened, into res- 
pectable mediocrity. Each generation counts hundreds 
of such abortive careers for one who, like Carroll, threads 
the maze of life with so few mistakes as to win in good 
time the superior place to which nature gave him the pass- 
port. By what hair-breadth escapes, skilful generalship, 
sleepless vigilance, tact, study, and intelligent self-devotion 
not his own, the field has been secured to one who started 
most imperfectly equipped for victory, is an unwritten 
story, one of those secret keys to that book of riddles — 
human life. 

Six years ago some auspicious influence addressed itself 
to counteract the prejudices to his rise set there by his 
position or character. As to the first, the conquest has 
been so complete that the acting world would now indig- 


68 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS, 


nantly deny that it had ever tried to snuff out Carroll mm 
a conceited amateur. Despite an abnormally nervous 
temperament and susceptible constitution, his health and 
youth have defied the merciless wear and tear of a profes- 
sion to which rest is practically forbidden. A man of 
uncertain, violent impulses and temper, a compound of ex- 
tremes of strength and weakness, he has reaped the full 
harvest of his strength, nor paid the common forfeit of his 
infirmities. 

Thanks to a hand ever ready to root up the tares as 
fast as he sows them. Envied, he encounters no active 
hostility, but continues to be admired and to deserve 
admiration. Luck has given his special faculties full and 
unimpeded swing, struck off his shackles, enabled him to 
mount the pedestal where he now stands, and there keeps 
him from fall or decline, ready with the means to avert 
every shadow of ill. 

His the genius, Marcia’s the character, without which 
genius is simply a curse, a clog that predestines a man to 
sink below the ordinary level of conduct and achieve- 
ment. An unfelt hand to guide him in the right way when 
passion blinds or distorts his judgment ; a delicate intel- 
ligence always there, to forecast and obviate the insidious 
perils that beset his path, perils of disposition, perils of 
chance or circumstance. He traverses the dark valley of 
life like the knight in the legend, scatheless amid noxious 
shapes and portents, because of a single ally on his side 
strong enough to exorcise the devil and his angels. 

Such a task is never over. But Marcia has never wea- 
ried. She derives pleasure from every trouble foreseen 
and averted, every dilemma got over. Blake’s “ luck ” 
is proverbial ; he believes in it, and the confidence 
it imparts is of cardinal importance to him. But there stands 
his “luck,” in the person of his wife. 

Marcia was now in the prime of womanly bloom. Her 
figure had gained in shapeliness and strength, without 
losing in grace ; her countenance in depth of expression ; 
her whole seeming in those sympathetic powers that only 
spring into being under the ordeal of life. Unquestionably 
a more beautiful picture than when she stood up at the 
altar, Wilfrid’s bride, she makes to-night, as she bends 
over her two little children in their cribs, to kiss them and 
wish them good-night. Both take after their mother. In 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


69 


the girl, Eva, the likeness is so strong as to be almost 
uncanny. Aubrey, the boy, of slighter make, and greater 
mobility of feature, has more of his father ; but his real 
prototype is Austin Day. 

Stay, stay,” is the burden of their infant prattle. 

“ Not to-night. I have to go and fetch papa. He wants 
to go to Lady Lyonesse’s great big party, and vvon"^ like 
it if I am late.” 

“ Papa,” to those babies, is a mysterious, omnipotent, 
household Mumbo Jumbo, to whom all the little world 
they know is subservient ; to whose least fancies, humors, 
convenience, good, all other considerations give way as 
naturally as the apple falls to the ground. They are fond 
but sometimes afraid of him. This mother is nearer to 
them ; the mainspring of life as they know it, and without 
whom its wheels would stop or go hopelessly wrong. 

Marcia lingered yet, talking to the nurse, her eyes 
meanwhile taking note of every nursery detail, to 
satisfy herself that nothing had been neglected or for- 
gotten. Her servants, like her children, were devoted to 
her. No house in London is better ordered than the 
Blakes’. There was freedom without bohemianism ; regu- 
larity without monotony or the temper of a martinet ; 
wealth without waste or ostentation or unbecoming par- 
simony. Marcia’s example inspired her dependents, 
leading them to make it a point of honor that nothing 
should go amiss. 

She now drove off to the theatre, entering the manager’s 
box as the curtain rose on the last act of Rizzio^ a frothy, 
meretricious play which, thanks to her husband, was 
enjoying a brief vogue. 

Seated in the back -ground she watched Wilfrid’s entry 
attentively and with some secret anxiety. He had been 
somewhat overworked lately and was suffering from the 
strain. The night’s performance, so far, had been well up 
to his usual level. Bertha, now an efficient actress of 
secondary parts, was playing Mary Beton with a taste and 
feeling Marcia noted approvingly. The part of the Queen 
was filled by Verena Courtnay, then the favorite par ex- 
cellence of photographers and the London play-going 
public. No dramatic artist in the genuine sense, but a 
notorious name, striking presence, factitious prestige, and 
personal seductions before which, as before Nebuchad- 


70 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


nezzar’s golden image, dazzled mankind was fain to fall 
down and worship. 

An arrant coquette, she could never forgive Carroll the 
indifference she felt underlying his passionate stage-love- 
making, as well as his green-room attentions. Such 
insensibility, in such a subject, piqued her vanity, which 
was monstrous. There could be but one cause. Her 
successful rival, Marcia, sat looking on serenely. She was 
the real Circe, and had no call to trouble herself about 
this stage-queen’s vagaries. Verena positively hated Wil- 
frid’s wife, who could unite and harmonize in her person 
the attractions both of sacred and profane love. Needs 
must be a powerful philtre my lady was possessed of to 
secure so much constancy in such a subject, thought 
Verena maliciously, who understood Wilfrid, at all events, 
better than she did his wife. She had given up being rude 
to the latter, having found it unsafe. Ready of repartee, 
Marcia made ill-natured shafts recoil on the archer. She 
was not to be disconcerted or taken by surprise ; yet with 
all her mastery of the weapon of speech, she had never 
been known to abuse it. 

Marcia hardly deigned to notice the play-queen’s arts 
this evening, palpable though they were, almost enough 
to found a scandal upon. An unfounded scandal, in 
Verena’s opinion, was better than none. Marcia’s 
attention was centred in Wilfrid. He was splendid 
to-night, her companions in the box kept reiterat- 
ing. She only knew that it was one of his bad days 
when the power of the human steam-engine costs too much 
to keep up. The part was one that tried him particularly ; 
then if anything went wrong, before or behind the curtain, 
the jar and strain of disguising the disturbing effect would 
react on him afterwards with a violence Marcia had come 
to dread, and that often taxed her resources severely. 

Something had gone wrong to-night, she detected ; and 
worse was to follow. At the highly-tragic climax, a blun- 
dering actor among Rizzio’s murderers dropped his dagger 
in the very act of delivering a home-thrust. Fatal slip from 
the sublime, ever welcome to a British audience ! — the 
victim recoiling from a blow imstruck — the short-sighted 
assassin vainly peering round for his weapon on the floor 
— Marcia almost heard the ready ripple of laughter that, 
however, did not break from the stalls. With such leger- 


PAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


n 

demain-like rapidity as to cheat all but the most alert 
senses, Rizzio had snatched the dagger — wrested it (his 
gesture made everybody think they had seen it done) — 
from his sincerely terrified assailant, closed now with him 
in a deadly struggle : a spontaneous-seeming departure 
from the usual action that brought down the house. The 
cheers redoubled after the fall of the curtain, Carroll res- 
ponding with something of the expression of Rizzio before 
his assassins still upon his face. 

His comrades prefer — for his own sake and theirs — to 
keep away from him at such moments. A trifle will then 
irritate him to fury he is apt to vent in speeches and acts 
that would be death to another man’s popularity, sowing 
mischief with both hands, which Marcia has to nip in the 
bud. 

She reflected a moment ; then, instead of going behind 
the scenes, took somebody’s arm to the carriage, and there 
awaited her husband. He did not keep her long. The 
door was presently thrown open, he sprang in and flung 
himself violently on the seat by her side. His face was 
haggard ; his eyes were sunken and bloodshot ; there was 
a general evidence of wild disturbance about him calculated 
to alarm or distress a timid wife. Neither alarmed nor 
distressed was she, Marcia. 

For Lady Lyonesse’s party he was manifestly unfit. 
Had she proposed to give it up he would have insisted ; 
but seeing her waiting there in her best gown, and the 
sparkle of her jewels, the spirit of contradiction, which of 
all human impulses is perhaps the one most to be depended 
on, prompted him to do the sensible thing. 

“ Home,” he said peremptorily ; and Marcia, unspeak- 
ably relieved, gave the order to the coachman. 

Wilfrid was most imperfectly conscious of where he 
passed the next few minutes. The fresh, cool air blowing 
in at the window, which Marcia had lowered, brought him 
back to an intolerable sense of nervous discomfort. He 
was glad she did not speak. The effort of listening, of 
answering, would just then have been the last straw. 

But her mere presence had a soothing quality ; it 
breathed a freshness, a strength, and repose that were 
communicative. Her dress never creaked, or got in the 
way, or caught, or tore, like other wives’ dresses. 


72 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


Although their semi-suburban abode was three miles 
and more from the theatre, they seemed to get there in no 
time ; and the instant the carriage was dismissed, Wilfrid 
discovered that in coming straight home they had done 
just the wrong thing. He felt as if the house would 
suffocate him, refreshments choke him, quietude and 
restraint drive him frantic. Why on earth had they not 
gone to the party ? He reproached Marcia for having, 
as he now fancied, persuaded him to throw it over ; and 
would have recalled the brougham, but it was out of 
sight. 

“ Let us walk up to the heath,” suggested Marcia. 

To this he assented, and without delaying to fetch her 
hat, she pulled her hood over her head and went with him 
through the house, and the long strip of garden-ground 
behind, out into the road by a door in the boundary 
wall ; across the highway into a dark, solitary lane strik- 
ing upward, over-lapped by the chestnut-trees of many 
gardens, behind the palings. 

Wilfrid walked like one pursued ; it was all Marcia 
could do to keep up with him in his mad midnight march. 
Not a creature was about. Overhead hung clouds, like 
masses of white smoke, with great breaks, through which 
the stars shone. Lamps twinkled below, showing the 
blocks of houses they were passing, lightless and uniform, 
with the white blinds drawn, as if some one lay dead in 
each. The last of these left behind, the footpath skirted 
a churchyard, crowded with white crosses, headstone 
slabs, and heavy marble tombs, interspersed with cypress- 
like trees and shrubs, vividly defined against a patch of 
clear, star-spangled sky. It was still as the desert, but 
for the creaking of dead boughs, swaying lightly. Quite 
suddenly they emerged on the open heath, a blank vista 
of lamps and space, broken by the shapeless black 
shadows of thorn-bushes here and there. Behind, lay 
London — behind the screen of tall elms, bowed north- 
wards by the wind. The fierce blaze of stars in the 
vault above looked as though these would fall upon the 
heads of the night-wanderers as they halted on the broken, 
rough high ground overlooking the heath. 

“ I should like to rest a minute,” said Marcia, seating her- 
self on a bench. She was not tired ; but Wilfrid, who had 
hurried her along like a whirlwind, was overtaken by a 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 73 

violent palpitation of the heart and a paralyzing tremor, 
forcing him to follow her example. 

As if by an unconscious movement, she had placed her 
cool hand on his. Her touch had the quality we call 
mesmeric. His nervous discomfort was abating slightly, 
but his voice was hoarse and unrecognizable as he broke 
silence abruptly, by-and-by : 

“ That fellow Riley will make a madman of me one of 
these days.” 

“ We must get rid of him,” Marcia responded com- 
posedly. “ Crowe was telling me only the other day that 
he should not renew his engagement.” 

“Was he ? ” asked Wilfrid taken aback. 

“ So I understood.” 

By what diplomacy, what skilful tactics, Marcia had 
egged on the manager to take the wise determination, 
never doubting that it was the spontaneous resolve of 
his own mind, was her secret. 

“Poor devil!” said Wilfrid, half remorsefully. “He 
has a pack of children and poor relations dependent on 
him, and debts in proportion. It would be a serious 
thing for him to lose his place at the Royal.” 

“ You must get him another,” said Marcia. “ That 
will not be difficult. It cannot advantage him to disgrace 
himself nightly as he is doing now.” 

“ ] believe I half throttled him in reality this time,” 
said Wilfrid with a laugh. “ He said so.” 

“Well,” responded Marcia heartily, “in your place I 
should have done it outright; and so I shall tell him. 
However, you did better, in wresting his fiasco to a furore 
for yourself.” 

An hour may have lapsed so, and they were there still, 
contemplating the waste of heath and glittering lamps, 
with the sleeping city behind them, whence the West- 
minster chimes boomed at intervals. 

“ Wilfrid,” said Marcia at length, “ I must ask you to 
come home now, if you don’t mind, or you may have to 
carry me ; I shall get so tired.” 

And they retraced their steps, slowly this time ; for 
Wilfrid, his feverish fit over, felt as if his limbs were 
weighted with lead. The house reached, he walked 
into the dining-room and flung himself into the first chair, 
feeling and looking a complete wreck. 


14 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


It had been Marcia’s fancy to make this the pleasantest 
room of all. The lights were soft and subdued ; the 
coloring a treat to the eye. Fresh flowers were always 
about ; it was a cool place in the hottest summer. Refresh' 
ments were spread on the table, just noted by Wilfrid with 
a glance of disgust. 

Marcia had gone off to her nursery^ reappearing just as 
Wilfrid was beginning to get impatient of being left 
alone. He was himself again now ; that is, restored to a 
measure of reason and self-control. 

Marcia took a seat by the table and helped herself to 
some supper. She was really hungry after her walk. 

“ Wilfrid,” she began presently, “ you were superb to- 
night, that is certain. But I call these triumphs too dearly 
bought. I shall make Crowe take Rizzio off the bills.” 

Wilfrid smiled. “ What do you expect ? A man can’t 
play the devil with all the passions, and keep as cool as 
the organ grinder who gets all his modulations by turning 
a handle.” 

“ I wish there was a little more of the organ grinder in 
your method,” she confessed playfully. “ They tell us of 
George Frederick Cooke drowning his audience in tears, 
and winking slyly at his friends behind the scenes, in the 
same breath.” 

“ Cooke helped himself with brandy,” remarked Wilfrid, 
“ and Rob restricts me to this,” pouring out a bumper of 
claret. 

“ Bertha plays that part well,” Marcia observed. “ I 
was quite surprised.” 

“Yes,” said Wilfrid cordially. “She has wonderfully 
improved lately, and ought soon to take a higher position.” 

“ So I think. (There, Wilfrid, I hope you admire me, 
setting to work on this chicken for both.) Why don’t 
people make more of her ? ” 

“ She’s too conscientious, I really think,” said Wilfrid, 
suddenly drawing his chair to the table, and addressing 
himself to the supper before him. 

“That sounds cynical,” laughed Marcia. “But I’m 
afraid you’re not wrong. It seems difficult enough for a 
man to get on, if he happens to be encumbered with a 
conscience ; impossible for a girl.” 

“ Oh, she will get on in time,” he said carelessly. “ She 
makes no enemies, at all events.” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


75 


“ That generally means no friends either,” remarked 
Marcia. “ But Bertha, at any rate, will always have you 
and me,” 

Wilfrid made short work of his repast, attacking it the 
more strenuously to get the task over. He leant back in 
his chair, the deadly, horrible fatigue of just now giving 
place to a natural, great, but not unpleasant lassitude. 
His cheek had resumed its natural color. 

“What did you think of Verena to-night?” he asked 
of his wife. 

“ I thought her attitudes most picturesque. Certainly 
she can play Queen Mary, after a fashion.” 

“ Yes,” returned Wilfrid queerly. “ Her fashion ! ” 

Marcia raised her laughing eyes to his ; and he laughed 
too. 

“ How she hates you ! ” he said, his glance resting ex- 
pressively on the unstudied grace of the figure opposite ; 
and the face beside which that queen-rose in the rose- 
garden of stage-beauties appeared like a rose of wax. 
Verena would have bartered her hopes of salvation for 
those plentiful amber tresses, perfect teeth ; that fresh in- 
grained complexion, and natural faultlessness of shape no 
artifice can exactly counterfeit. Give Verena these, and 
she will leave not one of us disenchanted. Marcia had 
devoted all that she had to the enchantment of one. 

She had moved to seat herself near him ; her light hand 
just touched his hair ; her liquid grey eyes looked straight 
into his, to greet the flash of love that sprang to meet 
them. Her countenance was grave, tender, and beautiful 
in her womanly triumph. 

“ Queen Mary, Queen Mary,” he said laughing, in a 
reckless, boyish way. 

She bent over him, laid her cheek softly against his, 
resting her hand on his shoulder for a moment; then her 
sweet lips touched his, and his frame thrilled with the 
soothing pressure of her embrace. 

How far Carroll’s success in life was due to a partner 
who made life’s burden so exceptionally light for him, thus 
enabling him to give the public he served his best on all 
occasions, was not fully known to that partner herself. 
She shrank from judging him, as though it might have 
hindered her fatally in her task. Her help was so subtly 
and indirectly rendered that her handiwork passed mostly 


76 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


unrecognized. It was better for Wilfrid that he should 
not measure the extent of his obligations to her — better 
for his self-esteem, his prime safeguard. The lot had fallen 
to him in pleasant places, he partly perceived, and he loved 
and was grateful to his wife, the angel in the house. Why 
consider the cost to her, who was human like himself, of 
the angel’s part, since she never counted it ? It was Marcia 
who had laid down the law that no self-expense was too 
great if it could spare him even a passing worry. All 
tedious business — theatrical business excepted — she took 
off his hands, keeping him acquainted with everything, and 
coming to him for the stamp of his approval. And whether 
the business were with his lawyer or with his kitchen-maid, 
she was found as apt to watch for him the drawing up of a 
contract or agreement as to superintend the dressing of a 
salad. Like a superior orchestral conductor who is also a 
proficient on the separate instruments of the band. Never 
any preventible accident, epidemic, or other trouble in 
Wilfrid’s house. She spends money — she can do that 
without blinking ; but then he makes it faster. 

He can trust himself to her, whatever his mood ; it will 
never be jarred upon by a stupid speech or ill-timed 
question. She knows when silence soothes and when it 
oppresses, when reasoning prevails and when it con- 
firms a man in his folly. Whether Marcia were a good 
woman or not, it is certain many excellent wives came to 
her in those days for lessons. 

They poured out their griefs to her, and found her as 
sympathetic as though she too had drawn a blank in the 
marriage lottery. One had been stupefied by lighting 
accidentally on a letter to her husband from a notorious 
ballerina. Another’s consort had speculated himself into 
discreditable money troubles. A third’s had alcoholic fits 
of temper and gloom that kept his womankind in sleepless 
dread of some dire household disaster. Dismal tales of 
conjugal misery, they would never have confided to 
another ; but everybody ran to Marcia for support — to hen 
the fortunate one. Mr. Blake, so charming, so refined, so 
brilliantly clever, and in love with her to this day ! 

Certainly Wilfrid was brilliant, fair famed, and constant 
in his preference. Thanks to his own fortitude in adver- 
sity, loyalty of disposition, clear judgment, and power of 
self-control? Or when yesterday the papers briefly re- 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


17 


corded the miserable end of one as gifted, as young, and 
for a season or two as famous — the last wretched chapter 
of a disgraceful life — suicide in all but the legal sense — 
might perhaps the cheated devils sneer, “ There goes 
Carroll the actor, but for Marcia, his wife ! ” 

“ If she married me for ambition,” said Wilfrid once to 
his brother Robert, in rallying reminder of a certain ill- 
humored speech, “ there at least she has not been alto- 
gether disappointed.” 

“ Will, I was a blockhead,” confessed the good doctor, 
who came nearer than any one to properly appreciating 
Marcia’s salutary influence. “ I know you’ve forgiven me ; 
but I never made a worse blunder in my life.” 

Marcia had no more unqualified admirer than her hus- 
band’s brother. 

Wilfrid, coming down late to breakfast next morning, 
found Marcia waiting for him, and the two little ones play- 
ing about. 

“ Really, Eva grows more like yoii every day,” he said, 
as they ran up to be kissed. He was fond of them, when 
they were not tiresome, but five minutes at a time was 
mostly enough for him of the noise and dreadful activity 
of infancy. • At a sign from their mother they ran off to 
the nursery. Wilfrid, whose nervous elasticity was full of 
surprises, even for his nearest relations, appeared to have 
entirely regained his normal vigor and spirits. He glanced 
at his letters as Marcia poured out the coffee. 

“ The answer from Sundorne,” he said, opening the one 
she had placed uppermost. “ Gives consent of course. 
But what a characteristic note ! Read it.” 

Marcia read it attentively ; then asked : 

“ Has he sent you this piece, Kmg Rupert ? ” 

Yes, there it lay in the heap. Wilfrid took it up. 

“ Longish, but I must find time to look through it. I’ve 
a mind to cut the Crowes’ party this afternoon. You can 
get Bertha to go with you.” 

“ I should like him to see you in Tasso on Wednesday,” 
pondered Marcia, aloud. “ He would be satisfied for 
once.” 

“ Authors never are satisfied, even the modest ones. A 
dreamer and innovator like Sundorne is past pleasing by 
your bumble servant,” said Wilfrid. 


78 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


At all events he makes no difficulties. If Fling Rupert 
is equally good, your influence might secure it a trial.” 

Marcia’s dearest ambition for her husband now would 
have been to see him hold the entire control of a theatre, 
mainly devoted to the higher drama. But she had realized 
that he was totally unfit for the business cares of such an 
office. The single experiment he had tried in that line had 
proved a creditable failure. Marcia could have done it, 
but lacked the necessary leisure and the technical know- 
ledge, and for the present had reluctantly abandoned the 
dream. 

She went to the afternoon party with Bertha, who lived 
near, and was as much at home and as welcome in their 
house as though she had been a sister. The girl’s old 
romance was no secret to Wilfrid’s wife — but what of that ? 
Bertha had worshiped Carroll as an artist hero, and wor- 
shiped him still. So did hundreds of other enthusiastic 
young ladies. But her attachment and admiration for 
Marcia were warm and sincere ; she was loyal to the core, 
her genuine unselfishness and freedom from the desire of 
personal display amounting sometimes to a meek self- 
effacement which, had another than Wilfrid been concerned, 
Marcia might perhaps have slightly despised. 

She made her husband’s excuses to her hosts so cleverly 
and herself so agreeable to the people he had affronted last 
night, that they forgave and forgot. It was almost a privi- 
lege to have him quarrel with you, since it entitled you to 
so much pleasant notice from such a wife. Marcia’s social 
talent was a perennial source of wonder and admiration to 
Bertha, only a degree less noteworthy than Wilfrid’s artistic 
gifts. 

Returning together they found him pacing the dining- 
room in a ferment of impatience for their reappearance. 

“ What is the matter ? ” asked Marcia. 

“ This is the matter,” he replied, significantly upholding 
Sundorne’s roll of manuscript. “ This is the most remark- 
able thing ever sent me. I got quite excited over reading 
it. I shall take it to Crowe. He can’t, I think, fail to see 
its merit. It’s a splendid thing, but will cost a mint of 
money to put on the stage. That’s the chief obstacle that 
I see. Marcia, you must write to him. Say he must come 
up and appoint to see me, here or at the theatre, as suiU 
him best, and soon.” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


79 


CHAPTER HI. 

AN ARRIVAL. 

The Benefit was proceeding prosperously. Tasso in parti- 
cular, beautifully mounted, and acted in a finished manner 
by Carroll and Bertha Norton, had created quite a little 
furore. But the inordinate length of the programme 
obliged Marcia to leave before the end of a “ morning ” 
performance, which promised to last till after sundown. 
Time, between, for her to despatch various business 
errands, drive home, and send back the carriage for her 
husband and Bertha, who was returning to dine, and 
accompany them to an evening party. The theatre was 
closed that night. 

Marcia had to call at the post-office, a few steps from 
her house. She there dismissed the brougham, and 
entered her domain by the back-garden gate, of which she 
had the key in her pocket. The long, narrow, enclosed 
strip, part lawn, part shrubbery, faced the bow windows of 
the drawing-room on the ground floor ; and Marcia 
advancing, saw to her surprise the figure of a man within, 
standing by the fire turning over the leaves of a book. 
Who but her husband or her father should thus be making 
himself at home there in her absence ? And Austin Day 
was at this moment in Italy; and Wilfrid delighting his 
admirers at the Royal as Rizzio in his death throes. Dr. 
Robert Blake, perhaps. 

Coming nearer, she perceived that the intruder was a 
total stranger. A touch of singularity in his appearance 
struck a sudden light in her mind. 

Sundorne ! 

Their invitation, left unnoticed, he had chosen thus to 
respond to in person, without a word beforehand. Charac- 
teristic ! She did not quicken her pace, but Sundorne had 
heard the light rustle of her dress on the turf, and looked 
up through the window. 

He saw a tall fair woman coming down the garden 
towards him, with a natural dignity in the turn of h^r 


8o 


FAMOCrS OR INFAMOUS. 


head and her movements he unconsciously noted. She 
disappeared into the house, to reappear the next instant 
through the drawing-room door, and accost her unknown 
guest. 

This she did by extending her hand to him and saying, 
with unhesitating simplicity : 

“ Arthur Sundorne ! ” 

The greeting was lucky, if unconventional. For though 
presumably aware that his name was not written on his 
person, he would none the less have found her vexatious 
had she put him to the necessity of introducing himself. 

“We were expecting you,” she continued, “hoping, 
that is, you would give us the pleasure of this visit. As 
my husband is not here, I, in his name, must thank you 
for your confidence.” 

Confidence, aye, that was the right word. He felt as he 
had felt on reading Blake’s last letter — the novel, incredible 
feeling of being understood. An alien in human society, 
he had of a sudden been spoken to, as it were, in his 
native tongue. 

Recognition had flown Sundorne so obstinately and so 
long, that he no more looked for it than to have back his 
lost youth. It was from Wilfrid Blake that the first gleam 
of effectual appreciation had reached him. Marcia was 
only the wife — her husband, the successful actor’s mouth- 
piece. Still she performed the office well. Sundorne felt 
at ease with her in the room, as he rarely did except when 
alone. 

He had seated himself, in compliance with her courteous 
gesture. Marcia, sitting near, let her grey eyes rest on 
him studiously, as on a new book whose title-page rouses 
great expectations. She perceived at once that, unlike 
Wilfrid, he was absolutely indifferent to scrutiny. His 
nervous system was of a robuster order. The man was of 
cast iron in some ways, and no more to be ruffled by 
being looked at by petty human eyes than the sea or an 
Alp. 

Tall he was not ; and he scarcely looked his full height, 
being disproportionately developed. The upper part of 
his frame was powerful and massive j the head rather 
large, the features likewise, their well-defined outlines 
could boast of no beauty or symmetry. But the brow was 
remarkable for its extensive, fine development ; the brow 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


8i 


of a thinker, and a creative thinker, you need be no 
Lavater to divine. The iron-grey hair was very thick ; 
the eyes far apart, deeply set ; their force of expression 
latent; veiled windows of a spirit driven inward, forced to 
commune with itself alone. One look had settled there : 
the look of sullen opposition of a rebel, ever unsuccessful, 
ever unsubdued, irreconcilable at heart. A strange, 
strong, and at first sight a most unattractive personality. 
Fear or dislike were the sentiments it was apt to provoke. 
Marcia was at all events no subject for fear ; and her 
manner, though deferent, was free from the shade of 
timidity. 

“ How were you satisfied this afternoon ? ” she asked 
him presently. A moment’s reflection assured her that he 
had gone privately to the theatre, to see his Tasso, and, 
like herself, left as soon as it was over. 

“ I find no fault with the performance, except the piece 
itself,” he replied. 

“ Ah, you have gone beyond ; you have written King 
Riipert,'^ Marcia rejoined spontaneously. “ It is as 
sunlight to moonlight ; but the source of the light is the 
same in both.” 

Strange coincidence, his very own thought, to-day ! 
For the first time he looked at her with a momentary 
interest of a kind rarely called up in him by a woman. 
He now recollected having heard some particulars about 
Carroll’s wife. 

“ You are Austin Day’s daughter ? ” he said, almost 
graciously ; and Marcia inclined her head. 

He was thinking of an early composition of his ; 
a poetical essay, which he had dedicated to that father of 
hers, and sent him, receiving in return a graceful letter, full 
of encouraging expressions. 

Though the letter-writer forgot all about it in a week, 
and little or nothing had ever come of his exertions in 
Sundorne’s behalf, and though gratitude was not an 
emotion to which the latter was particularly liable, he 
retained some friendly feeling for Austin Day, as for an 
eminent man who had once shaken hands with him intel- 
lectually, so to speak. It was twenty years since. 

“ Twenty years ago,” he mused aloud ironically, “ he 
wrote to compliment me on the ‘ high career ’ before me. 


0 


82 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


So much for his predictions. I stand where I stood 
then.” 

“ Nay,” Marcia responded, with quiet sincerity, “ King 
Rupert is many years richer even than Tasso at Sorrento. 
The harvest of a lifetime may be reaped in a single day. 
Your harvest-home day has been long in coming, but 

cannot be distant, now that ” She checked herself, 

abashed, adding quickly, “ Forgive me for presuming to 
remind you of what you must know so well.” 

He forgave her ; her words had fallen on his unregard- 
ing ears like a pleasant tune, faintly enjoyed and unremem- 
bered. 

A sharp ring presently announced Wilfrid’s return, 
right welcome to his wife. The present tete-a-tete might 
be interesting, but the effort of sustaining conversation 
with this singular personage was becoming burdensome. 
Now her husband came to her relief, with Bertha j he in 
the glory of one of those rare happy moments that repay 
the artist for worlds of miseries — the unalloyed zest of a 
well-earned triumph. The spirit and fire of his face lent 
to it something of the beauty of a Greek head, to which 
the features had some affinity in their plastic refinement. 
Bertha had never more admired her hero — a very Hyperion 
to behold. What strange, rough, ugly being was that, 
planted there on the hearth-rug ? She could not conjec- 
ture. 

“ Wilfrid,” said Marcia’s soft, modulated voice, “ Arthur 
Sundorne is here. He has come already ” 

Here Sundorne, confronted with the artist to whose 
talent and co-operation he was indebted for a sudden stride 
into public favor, and might become indefinitely obliged 
in the future, stepped forward and held out his hand, 
saying : 

“ 1 have long disowned TassOy as no true child of mine. 
I never believed I could be led so nearly into taking it 
into favor again, as by your interpretation this afternoon ; ” 
praise that Wilfrid deprecated with the light, delicately- 
worded phrases that came naturally to him at such mo- 
ments. 

He pressed Sundorne to stay to dinner. There were 
plenty of night trains back to whence he came. The in- 
vitation was not refused. Marcia now quietly drew Bertha 


FAMOUS OR /^FAMOUS. 83 

from the room. The men had much to say to each other, 
and would talk more freely, ladies away. 

“ How lucky that Wilfrid is at home to-night, and that 
you, and no one else, are dining with us, Bertha 1 ” she 
exclaimed, as they lingered upstairs, arranging their toi- 
lettes. 

“ Shan’t I be in the way? ” asked Bertha, laughing. 

“ Quite the contrary ; you will support me. You belong 
to us. And he will be very civil to you when he remem- 
bers who you are, and your share in bringing about his 
success this afternoon,” 

“ I never saw such a strange being in my life,” declared 

Bertha. “ He looks like — like ” and she stopped, at a 

loss for a simile. 

“ A King in Exile,” suggested Marcia, half-jestingly. 

“ King? Well, or Pretender.” 

“ Pretender or not, we have taken his side — made his 
cause ours.” 

“ Wiser perhaps to be his friend than his enemy. For 
I should think he was a good hater, in the first place.” 

“ I don’t know,” said Marcia meditatively. “ I fancy a 
friend’s office with him would be no sinecure. He would 
exact so much.” 

“ How odd of him to drop in on you in this sudden 
way ! ” 

“ It was I who dropped in upon him,” said Marcia, des- 
cribing how, entering by the garden, she had found the 
intruder, who had told the servants he should wait till 
Mr. Blake came home, coolly established on the premises. 

“Were you afraid of him?” asked Bertha. “ But I 
suppose you never are afraid — you.” 

“ I was not afraid of him, I think," answered Marcia 
doubtfully. “ And yet, Bertha, I confess my first feeling 
was just as if I had walked in and found a runaway old 
lion had taken possession of my hearthrug ; some creature 
at least as foreign to the amenities of polite society.” 

Sundorne might pride himself on his contempt for the 
amenities of polite society, but he was anything but in- 
sensible to their operation, when agreeable. 

Wilfrid Blake, the private individual, never appeared to 
better advantage than at the head of his own table. 
An inherent gentlemanly quality, an instinctive considera- 
tion, strong in him, which to-night there was nothing to 


84 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


obscure, enabled him to make any guest, great or small, 
feel at ease under his roof, seldom failing to draw out the 
shyest. A gift of manner that wins more hearts than can 
solider merits. An unexpected kind word well spoken, the 
pleasant surprise of finding yourself remembered, creates 
a gratitude, an allegiance, often denied to long and faith- 
ful service. But Sundorne was not of the stuff that is 
played upon thus. As well hope to stimulate Dodona’s 
oak to conversation by tickling the bark. 

The burden of talk thus fell upon Wilfrid. Marcia 
seconded him a little, but was unavoidably reticent. Ber- 
tha, always more inclined to listen than speak, was dumb. 
Wilfrid perceived that he was shooting at a target from 
whose impermeable surface all shots glanced off. Sun- 
dorne’s retorts were brief, not over courteous ; a palpable 
irony underneath girt him like armor. It was his mood 
— ungenial. 

Perhaps he was contrasting Carroll’s abode — the plea- 
sant dining-room, warm and airy, full of light and color, 
the delicate and abundant fare and wines, the charm of 
ornament and luxury without excess or display, the soft- 
hued dresses of the two women, the flowers and Venetian 
glass — with the squalid cell where he was at home. He 
had proved himself something of a spendthrift when 
money was to be made or borrowed (occasions rare, and 
now remote), having a marvellously strong relish for those 
choice sweets of life he had had to forego. Yet he was 
persuaded he had incomparably better right to life’s favors 
than his host, if might, taken in its widest sense, be right. 
It was the way of the world. You must stoop to conquer. 
Those who won’t lower their heads get them broken. 

And, as the flow of wine quickened his pulses, the ex- 
hilarating effect of what, to him, was a very banquet of the 
senses, the unwonted touch of physical ease and pleasure, 
intensified his mental gloom, the savage resentment of his 
soul. The curious fitful glow of his eyes, threatening, like 
summer lightning, betrayed sentiments ill-beseeming the 
grateful recipient of hospitality from distinguished quarters. 

But the sulkiest Achilles can be drawn out by pro- 
voking him to flat contradiction. Wilfrid, as he talked, 
and talked well, of players and plays, and of the arch- 
difficulties that beset an actor who would make a stand for 
the dignity and higher aspects of his art his powerlessness 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


85 


unsupported, said rather more than he meant in disparage- 
ment of his own position ; whereupon Sundorne, who saw 
it directly, suddenly chose to join in, as if to challenge the 
sincerity of the speaker. 

“Powerless? Say pitiful! The popular actor is a 
slave, set ignominiously to forge his own handcuffs. 
Forced to second the modern playwright in his shameful 
office of degrading and vitiating men’s intellectual instincts. 
Your gifts, your carefully acquired gifts of forming the 
taste of the crowd, you dedicate to the basest uses. An 
actor’s talents are not his own to say how they shall be 
applied. Tide carries them — whither? We know. This 
poor trash can be made exciting by a careful hospital 
study for a poisoning scene. Four inane acts to lead up 
to a death screech which is what the audience has really 
paid to hear. All London will flock to see this other 
piece of worthless patchwork, because it enables some 
favorite to show off his tricks, like a trained poodle. An 
actor’s proudest achievement is to carry through with 
acclamations what should have been hooted without 
mercy, to confuse the judgment of his admirers between 
good and evil. Bad goods are easiest and cheapest to 
supply. It is to the interest of playmongers that men 
should learn to receive, to expect, and, in time, to prefer 
them.” 

The strong animosity, the withering scorn with which 
he delivered this tirade were such that, as Bertha after- 
wards expressed it to Marcia, she looked at the flowers on 
the table, expecting to see them turn yellow and shrivel up. 
Wilfrid was staggered by the outburst he had provoked ; 
but he was not going to eat his words. 

“ No doubt,” he said, “ those are temptations with which 
we actors are continually beset. We should be more than 
human if we never yielded, perhaps unconsciously ; for I 
can assure you it is hard for us sometimes to see clearly 
what we are doing. On the other hand, one who has been 
so fortunate as to win popular favor by such means as are 
open to us may use it to secure attention to works of the 
highest order. That has been done — is being done to- 
day.” 

“ More in appearance than in fact,” Sundorne objected. 
“ What, after all, do these vaunted ‘ revivals ’ amount to, 
upholstery apart ? Who thinks of Shakespeare, first ? 


S6 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


Not the actor, whose vanity dictates his interpretation. 
Noble sentiments and earnestness are out of fashion. 
Therefore we have rollicking Romeos and flirting Juliets. 
The actor must signalize himself by some novelty in his 
reading, no matter if it puts the sense of the whole out of 
tune. You give us sentimental and benevolent Shylocks, 
refined Othellos, finikin Hamlets. We are tickled by the 
‘new reading.’ Enough, we extol it as a revelation, 
though it distort and destroy the whole bearing and motive 
spirit of the drama. All, forsooth, that the ranter may be 
talked about, written about, make his impersonation ‘ indi- 
vidual,’ that is, false. Prostitution is highly paid. You 
have your reward. You are flattered, fawned upon, petted, 
enriched, as though you had done the public a valuable 
service, instead of an irreparable injury. I don’t blame 
you. What can you do, alone ? ” 

Bertha could hardly believe her ears as she listened to a 
volley of abuse which, levelled at her host, sounded to her 
like blasphemous raving. 

“ You are severe,” said Wilfrid moderately. “ I console 
myself with thinking that, after all, the worst we can have 
to reproach ourselves with is having helped the public to 
pass a pleasant evening. No great crime that.” 

Disregarding the good-humored irony of his tone, Sun- 
dorne retorted. 

“ If you were an acrobat or a conjuror, no. For they 
cannot hope to do more by their contortions and plate- 
spinning. But those whose lines lie in what should be 
honorable service would writhe under a sense of the vile 
uses to which they are put, if they did not blink it. They 
are mere tools, I grant. But have they protested, resisted ? 
Have they not worked to gild the base metal and galvanize 
the wooden puppet ? And worked successfully. You have 
fed the public on trivial and corrupt fare till it has neither 
appetite nor digestion for anything better, no power to 
relish or assimilate it. You have closed the gates, and 
condemned authors to make buffoons of themselves or to 
hold their peace.” 

He was coming out of his shell at last, and getting into 
the vein. His rather narrow features seemed to expand 
as his animation quickened ; his eyes glowed with sunken 
fire. 

“ How stands their case to-day ? Your writer of plays 
commands such an audience as never English author com- 


Famous or wfamous. 


87 


manded before. The very groundlings among them know 
more than many of the great noblemen at Shakespeare’s first 
nights. We address a world of more varied information 
and wider interests ; there will soon be no uneducated 
person among the dregs of the populace. And travel, 
books, have made the whole earth kin. What a sphere ! 
what a force ! for one who could wield it. Now what do 
we find ? 

“Adaptations from the French, with just as much worth 
in them as in French adaptations of Shakespeare : dis- 
torted, emasculated versions of what, in its native consis- 
tent shape, would here be repulsive or unintelligible ; thus 
sacrificing all its scanty original merits, except the dazzling 
dresses of the women. Grocery comedies, as ephemeral 
as paper boats. Extravaganzas of which one can only say 
that what men would be ashamed to speak, they write it, 
and get it recited. And this in London, this in our great 
century, in the Victorian, the golden age of all arts save 
one. Dramas ? Call puppet-shows, masques, harlequinades 
by their right names.” 

“ Have a little mercy on the modern dramatist,” Wilfrid 
expostulated. “ Every one is more or less the child of his 
age ; yet there are some who would, if they could, take 
their profession in earnest.” 

Looking him full in the face, Sundorne replied : 

“ Show me such a man ; one whose convictions are 
strong and his motives pure, and who has steadily acted 
upon them ; one whose ears are sealed to applause, — the 
street mountebank gets that, — whose hands do not itch for 
gold ; the swindler gets that, — whose mind is steeped in 
a sense of the power and dignity of his art ; the richest, 
the only one that appeals to all our faculties, — senses and 
intellect; one who would rather have written Ham/et tha.n 
conquered India or discovered America ; let him come 
forward and say, ‘ I will not give men offal to feed on. If 
they choose it none shall get it from my hand.’ What is 
his lot here and now ? 

“ No treatment will be bad enough for him, no slight, no 
derision too contemptuous. His cup will never be full. 
He may knock his life long at the doors of insolent man- 
agers, truckle to smart actresses, half consumed by the 
vitriol thrown at him, if he be vulnerable, starve and suffer 
on till he die. Young man, you are right to do as you do. 


S8 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS, 


The price of self-respect is self-destruction. We thank 
heaven that the days are over when Johnson had to wait 
like a lackey in his patron’s ante-room, Goldsmith to curry 
favor with a lord. Those were better days than these for 
the dramatist. He had not sunk so low. Now, in pro- 
portion as he bears in view his great models in all ages 
and all countries, he is predestined to protracted contumely 
and rebuffs.” 

His face, as he spoke, whose mould at first sight seemed 
hard and stiff, changed rapidly as the sea in rough weather. 
Marcia’s eyes had never left it, fascinated, as by some 
startling natural phenomenon. 

Destiny, which gave her Austin Day for a father and 
Wilfrid for a husband, had decreed that she should have 
to do with men out of the common run. But this stranger 
who sat there in humble guise, discoursing thus strangely, 
impressed her with a dim sense as of a veritable magician 
whom they were entertaining unawares. 

“Yet there is talent among our authors,” Wilfrid pro- 
tested. 

“ Talent? Genius, if you like. Oh, they have it. To 
their eternal shame they have it ! And evince it by show- 
ing us to what unimaginably base uses it may be put, com- 
positions that leave us amazed that men, aye, clever men, 
should have the audacity to insult the public by such 
masterpieces of impudent puerility. Is it astonishing if 
people have learnt to go to the theatre as to the circus, 
where all but clowns and wantons and pageantry is for- 
bidden as tedious ? ” 

Like all habitually self-contained characters, Sundorne, 
once launched, was unable to stop himself. He had nearly 
lost cognizance of his audience, nor knew whose voice it 
was now speaking, as Marcia asked attentively : 

“ Do you not believe that a change might come to pass 
— a revolution ? ” 

“ I believe it — I know it. It is absurd to conclude from 
the strength of any stream that it is irresistible. Power, 
much of which is blind and senseless, has been diverted 
from the right channel. But he who would stem it single^ 
handed will leave his life there, and be buried in the grave, 
yard of madmen.” 

Wilfrid, though his point of view was different, was 
sensible of something in Sundorne’s ruinous fidelity to his 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


89 


unbiassed convictions, his deliberate braving of failure and 
neglect, he could furtively envy. For knowing the real 
worth, or worthlessness, of public applause as a criterion 
of merit, he must blush sometimes for the intoxication and 
self-approval it brought him all the same. Sundorne’s un- 
endorsed conceit was more honorable. He made no secret 
of his own opinion, of his own deserts. If ever the world 
opened its eyes to them he would lay hands immoderately 
on fame and mastery, of which long arrears were due to 
him, he considered. But they must be won in the way he 
had set before him as the only right way. 

The party had moved into the drawing-room without 
separating or breaking off the pungent discussion. 

“ What I say is,” asserted Wilfrid, “ that the reaction, 
or revolution, has partly begun. You have held aloof from 
the stage for six years. Meanwhile much has changed. 
Burlesque, if not dying, has lost its false prominence, and 
is restricted to its proper sphere, which it has, like juggling 
and plate-spinning. Low comedies and extravagant farces 
will go on for ever, but audiences begin to ask for some- 
thing more. An impresario need only to be courageous 
to set up a higher standard, not mad. He would encounter 
no insuperable opposition, no fatal difficulties, nor want in 
the end for friends and support.” 

“ You think so ? ” Sundorne’s penetrating eyes fixed on 
the speaker’s, in distrustful, eager, half ironical inquiry. 

“ I am sure of it.” 

Sundorne threw down the gauntlet : 

“Produce Kmg Rupert. Prove that you mean what 
you say.” 

“ Had I a theatre of my own ” the actor began. 

Sundorne cut him short, shaking his head contemptuous- 
ly; 

“ A word from you would secure a favorable hearing for 
the most arrant rubbish ; probably a success. I don’t 
stipulate for the success. Give it the hearing, and let what 
will follow.” 

There was silence. 

“ Wilfrid ! ” murmured Marcia’s voice, entreatingly and 
low. 

“ Oh, I know what the risk is,” Sundorne resumed. 
“ Certain loss, possible failure, ridicule and abuse. But 
these last will redound upon me. You will be praised ; 


96 


FAMOUS OR mPAMOUS, 


your judgment only censured ; your powers flattered, as 
usual. It will cost you trouble, may prove an ungrateful 
task. But if thus you have helped, in the very smallest 
degree, towards the restoration of worthier aims, and undo- 
ing the harm that you, aye, you, may — must have done to 
the actor’s and author’s vocation, by popularizing trash 
and worse, you will have accomplished more, far more 
than you could ever by a lifetime of ‘ starring,’ to your 
own profit, but to the lasting abasement of the Art you pro- 
fess to serve.” 

Bertha started with indignation at the transcendent im- 
pudence of this speech. How would Wilfrid take it? He 
was staggered ; but it was clear to him that no affront, in 
the ordinary sense, was meant. Like Marcia, he was des- 
perately interested, caught out of himself by the peculiar 
ascendency of his guest. Bertha was too angry readily to 
admit it. There was something in the man’s character — 
his demeanor bespoke it — that clashed with her strongest 
instincts, something so powerfully antipathetic that it 
blocked the way to appreciation. She glanced at Marcia, 
— who was seated next to the impetuous speaker, — in 
silent inquiry, when a trivial thought called off her atten- 
tion. 

As they sat there, thinking the same thoughts, a strange 
shadowy likeness seemed to come out between Marcia and 
the guest, an affinity in cast of feature, in play of counte- 
nance. It was only for a moment that Bertha saw it ; but 
she saw it so distinctly that it startled her. 

“ You are quite right,” Wilfrid was saying frankly. An 
actor’s ambition can never be a really lofty one, though we 
delude ourselves into thinking so.” 

“ It can at least be satisfied. I had ambition once,” he 
said, with a smile of haunting strangeness ; then speaking 
on with wistful abstraction : 

“ I saw a star rise. I saw a new day begin for the heirs 
to a vocation consecrated by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Mo- 
liere, Calderon, in the past. People went to the pantomime 
for pageants ; to circus clowns for puns and horse-play ; 
to music-halls for painted women in undress. They went 
to the theatre to feast their intellects and imaginations, to 
extend their sympathies, and stimulate their thoughts and 
understandings. And they found what they sought. 
There was no longer any need to denounce the absurdities 


FA MOLTS OF INFAMOUS. 


91 


that had so long usurped the front rank. They sank, as 
senseless dream-tricks when a man awakes.” 

There was another long silence. Then Marcia’s face lit 
up with satisfaction as Wilfrid, taking the manuscript of 
King Rupert from the table, said : 

“ Now let us talk of this. Tell me your ideas about it.” 


From that moment, Marcia and Bertha declared after- 
wards, there had been magic at work. Else how should 
the hours thus slip by unheeded? The clock hands 
seemed to fly round ; the candles burned down to their 
sockets, extinguished ; but ere then the sun was well up, 
and on Marcia’s drawing back the curtains there streamed 
in the full light of day. 

It was seven o’clock. They had sat talking thus since 
ten ; nor felt the time long, nor their eyelids heavy. 

Sundorne prepared to depart, on foot, as he had come, 
declining Wilfrid’s offered further hospitality. 

“ I wish to get back to Shelsley,” he said. “ I am din- 
ing to-night with my neighbor Mr. Mainwaring, of Shelsley 
Hall.” 

Wilfrid, saying he would see him on his way to the sta- 
tion, left the room to ascertain the starting-time of the 
train. Bertha had gone to put on her things. Alone with 
her guest, Marcia’s voice broke upon his abstraction : 

“Cecil Mainwaring is your neighbor, and you know 
him ? Is he not an immensely rich man ? ” 

His name was known to her as a patient of Dr. Blake’s ; 
furthermore through some correspondence with Austin 
Day, about a spurious old master, concerning which the 
young collector had deigned to consult the old critic. 

“ They say so,” said Sundorne indifferently. 

“ He could do this for you,” Marcia continued. 

“ I mean,” she resumed, in answer to Sundorne’s look 
of inquiry, that if he gave his pecuniary support to the 
enterprise, you would be independent of professional 
impresarios. He or one like him should provide the 
means. Then you and my husband, who has placed his 
services at your disposal, would be free to act.” 

Sundorne heard dubiously. It was not the first time 
the idea had crossed his head. 

“ Ask him,” Marcia concluded, “ to-night,” 


92 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


He looked surprised that a stranger, a woman too, 
should thus venture to press a suggestion upon him. Still 
neither the manner nor the matter of it displeased him 
exactly. 

“ Say/’ she resumed, undismayed, “ that if he is ambi- 
tious, here is a higher distinction open to him to bid for 
than that of being the successful disputer of a bit of Lim- 
oges enamel with a Jew broker. Ah, those rich people ! 
what they could do if they would ! ” 

Sundorne was set thinking. They parted in silence. 
Wilfrid accompanied him on his way, presently returning 
to find Bertha and Marcia just where he had left them. 

“ That is an extraordinary man,” he said emj^hatically. 

If he is mad as they say — well, his madness is catching. I 
don’t care — I shall go to Crowe with the play this after- 
noon. I shall make my re-engagement with him at Easter 
conditional on his producing King Rupert^'^ adding with 
mock humility, “ Let Sundorne say what he likes, some- 
thing at least the successful player can do for the unsuc- 
cessful author.” 

Marcia looked at her husband with pride and pleasure. 
“ Show him,” she said. 


CHAPTER IV. 

MAKER MEETS MANAGER. 

On the morrow, in the afternoon, Marcia sat alone in 
her drawing-room, expectant and thoughtful, plying her 
needle absently, when Mr. Crowe, the manager of her hus- 
band’s theatre, made a characteristic entry. 

Watch in one hand, in the other the manuscript of Kmg 
Rupert. Marcia was reminded of the postman, who just 
stops to deliver his parcel, and, moving on, is not to be stay- 
ed by human persuasion. He spoke jerkily, elliptically, 
shook hands in a hurry : hurry was chronic, organic with 
Mr. Crowe. The man was a vulgar-minded upstart and un- 
mannerly dog it cost Marcia a constant effort to be civil to. 
Obtuse and narrow-visioned besides, he was about as con- 
temptible a “boss,” morally and intellectually, as ever, 
by the might of the majority (which he represented and 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


93 


understood) lorded it over the minority, his superiors. 
He had a knack of mastering details, of conducting thea- 
trical enterprises, which had hoisted him into a position 
of authority for which in many ways he was ludicrously 
unfit, and which he only maintained through a sort of 
rough skill in picking the brains of his subordinates to 
supply his own, which thus showed itself not destitute of 
human intelligence. 

“ Husband out ? ” he began to Marcia in rebuke. “ Ap- 
pointed to meet me here at four. Time is money — mine 
is at least.” 

“ Mr. Blake is a sad spendthrift, I am afraid, both of 
your time and your money,” Marcia responded amiably. 
“ But sit down, I expect him in every minute.” 

“ Yes, my dear madam, and a very pleasant occupation 
no doubt for a lady — expecting him. How many moments 
do you suppose I have got to waste over that ? Four 
o’clock. Pressing engagement at half-past. I want to see 
him.” 

“ About this ? ” she asked, signifying the roll of manu- 
script in his hand. 

Aye — this,” clapping it down on the table, “ Was he 
out of his mind, think you, or screwed, perhaps, when he 
wrote to request my careful attention — 7nine^ mark you — 
for that ? ” 

“Well, I think not,” said Marcia, with a half laugh; 
“ but it is just possible I may be wrong, you know.” 

“ One madman makes many, they say — unsafe to have 
to do with. And all poets are lunatics, so I always keep 
clear of them — ha ! ha ! But I always gave your husband 
credit for being, at bottom, a fairly sane and sensible man, 
as actors go. Has this mad dog bitten him, or what? 
Infatuation ! ” 

“ You seem to have resisted the infection, at all events,” 
Marcia returned. “ It has not caught you.” 

“ No, no,” tapping his forehead with his knuckles. 
“ Sound as a bell, and as hard. Forge of experience. 
But bless me, madam, are you aware that he wrote as if he 
actually expected, called upon me seriously to consider 
the possibility of putting King Fiddlesticks on the stage ? ” 

“ I don’t pretend to pul forward an opinion,” said 
Marcia, “ much less to set up my judgment against yours. 
I see you think its production would promise nothing 
certain in the way of success.” 


94 


/FAMOUS OJ^ INFAMOUS, 


“ Production ? Impossible, my dear lady. The thing's 
absurd — the subject stale, key too high pitched ; the 
public wouldn’t sit out an hour of this style of thing, and 
quite right too. Gloomy, too, as a churchyard vault. 
That’s the way not to draw, ma’am. Gad ! if your hus- 
band and I weren’t such good friends, I should think it was 
an unkind practical joke of his, to see if I’d jump into a 
hole at his whistle. But old birds, you know — and ’tain’t 
the first of April.” 

Marcia’s long white fingers trifled unconsciously with 
the leaves of Sundorne’s manuscript whilst she spoke, as 
it were, reflecting aloud. 

“ Yet his Tasso failed at first, which proved so success- 
ful at the matinee the other day. I hear it is to pass into 
the nightly programme.” 

“ Tasso's another piece of work altogether. Had he 
brought that to me I’d have said directly, ‘ There’s a 
point or two to work up. Wants pruning sadly, but lop 
it about a bit, and it may do.’ If your husband would 
have let me have my way with it. I’d have used the car- 
ving-knife pretty freely, I promise you. But he’s as obsti- 
nate as a mule.” 

“ Has not its success created some public interest in 
the author, sufficient curiosity to secure a favorable hear- 
ing for a second piece ? Judging from the press notices 
I should say so.” 

“ Aye, and if I want to squash it, and make the critics eat 
their own words, no surer way than to produce King 
Rupert. Spend a mint of money to bring that about? 
No, thank you, ma’am.” 

“ My husband’s name has some small power to draw, I 
suppose,” pleaded Marcia, with graceful humility. 

“ Oh, I won’t say you nay. What’s in a name? Car- 
roll, for instance. Something, I grant you. Say a packed 
house, first, second and third nights, but no more, 
weighted with such a millstone as that. Garrick redivivus 
couldn’t pull it through.” 

He had seated himself, put away his watch, and was 
drinking the coffee and curacoa and devouring the muffins 
wherewithal Marcia had supplied him, having seemingly 
forgotten all about his engagement. Wilfrid’s step was 
now heard in the passage. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


95 


“ Ah, here comes the rascal. Good-day to you, Will ; 
and what do you mean, pray, by letting me kick my heels 
waiting for you all this while ? ” Thus he accosted the 
truant as he entered, in the tone of familiarity Marcia had 
schooled herself to endure, but that always made her 
shudder. 

Wilfrid’s graceful deliberation of manner was in charac- 
teristic contrast to Crowe’s eternal fidget, as he replied : 

“ Good of you to wait for me. I made all the haste I 
could. Some tea, Marcia.” 

Then having settled himself comfortably, he began : 

Now, Crowe, let us talk it over. What do you think of 
the stuff? ” 

“ Stuff? ” burst out Crowe. “ Right you are ! Sort of 
stuff gentlemen print at their own expense, on hand-made 
paper. All rights reserved. Really, Blake, you who 
know the worth of an hour to a hard-worked man like me 
— you, to go out of your way to play me a bad trick — 
keep me sitting up last night over that balderdash ! ” 

“ Well,” said Wilfrid, in whom the manager’s violent 
vulgarity produced only a good-natured amusement, “ no 
harm done, anyway. Saved you getting beaten at billiards 
by the marker, or drunk at your club. But to be serious, 
now, tell me your candid opinion of ” 

“ Serious ! ” Crowe almost screamed, interrupting him. 
“ I take my solemn oath you may clap the doors of Bedlam 
upon me the same day as I agree to produce King 
Rupert'^ 

“ Now look here, Crowe, don’t let habit and prejudice 
throw dust in your eyes. You’re long-sighted, and able 
to look ahead. It’s well sometimes to try and forecast 
the changes in public taste and feeling, and meet them 
half way.” 

Crowe winked and made a gesture of indescribable 
self-sufficiency. 

“ Aye, I know your British public, inside and out. 
Never been mistaken, that I know of, in actor or actress. 
And as to a new piece, I can risk a venture with the 
boldest, when I see fit, without flinching. But here’s no 
venture. Jump from the cross on St. Paul’s, and call it a 
venture, to try if you can fly.” 

“ I’ve the very greatest respect for the judgment of a 
man of your experience,” said Wilfrid affably, “ but I must 


96 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


tell you that here, Crowe, in mine you are wrong, abso- 
lutely wrong, rd stake my reputation upon it.” 

“ And a very good thing for you and for Mrs. Blake 
here that you can’t,” returned Crowe, nodding knowingly. 
“ And what you have all gone mad about it passes me to 
conjecture. If there was so much as a plum for you — I 
could understand. But though King Rupert’s part’s long 
enough, in all conscience, there’s no effects, now. I’ve 
known actors come to me with a parcel of rubbish and a 
firework or two for themselves inside ; aye, and we’ve 
made it go off, sir — pass for a fine thing. But you might 
as well bring me a wet sponge. There, for God’s sake put 
it away and have done with it. Let us talk of Riefizi. I 
want to get it in rehearsal for Easter.” 

Wilfrid, without betraying the least annoyance, but 
with a quiet civility that betokened what Crowe called one 
of his fits of confounded pigheadedness, and that baffled 
the manager more than violence or intemperate language, 
answered : 

“ I will not undertake to appear in Rienzi, nor even to 
discuss the matter with you, until you have met me with 
some definite proposal with regard to this new play of 
Sundorne’s.” 

Crowe changed color, but he could keep his temper 
with Wilfrid, with whom to quarrel were bad policy for 
his employer, and whose amiable self-command and un- 
broken courtesy displayed in this emergency shamed the 
other into more decent behavior than his wont. 

“ ’Pon my life and soul, Blake, that’s not fair now. You 
stars abuse your power, and as a rule I let ’em. Pays 
best in the long run. But once in a way a man must put 
his foot down. I can’t consent to this.” 

“ Very good,” said Wilfrid. “ You have as good a 
right to refuse my terras as I have to abide by them, as I 
do.” 

Involuntarily Crowe reached out his hand towards the 
manuscript and began disdainfully fingering the leaves. 

“ Even with all round alterations, root and branch, the 
best you’d ever dish up would be a poor thing — a dead 
loss to every one concerned.” 

“ Alterations? ” echoed Wilfrid contemplatively, with a 
sly side glance at Marcia of satisfaction at this first symp- 
tom of giving way. 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


97 


She shook her head. “ It is useless to discuss them,” 
she put in quietly, “ since Sundorne would certainly never 
listen to any suggestions of the sort.” 

Wilfrid signed to her to be silent on this head. It 
seemed to him that he had got in the thin end of the 
wedge, and that, with judicious temporizing, the rest might 
follow. 

“ What emendations should you suggest ? ” he asked, 
with feigned interest. 

“ Oh, reform it altogether, as IVe heard you say in 
Hamlet. Title, dialogue, scenic arrangements — last act 
above all. You must bring the young king out of it some- 
how. Poetical justice must be done.” 

Better tell him to make a comedy of it at once,” said 
Marcia, her impatience and disgust breaking out. 

“Might do worse, my dear madam. Lighten it — write 
up the humorous scenes — and I don't know but what it 
might stand a chance, twice as good, anyway, as in its 
present shape.” 

“ Here comes the author,” said Wilfrid, as a ring at the 
door gave warning of the arrival of Sundorne, whom they 
were expecting. “ We shall hear what he has to say to 
your stipulations.” 

Sundorne was announced. He gave his hand briefly to 
Wilfrid and Marcia. His air of abstraction and self- 
sufficiency did not promise well for concessions. As for 
Crowe, Sundorne just looked at him as you might at an 
intrusive turkey-cock, with a passing wonder as to how he 
got here out of the poultry-yard. 

Crowe in return gave him a curious, careless, sweeping, 
head-to-foot survey, with no more respect there than in a 
warder taking stock of a new convict. 

Wilfrid introduced them. Sundorne bowed impercep- 
tibly. The other made mock obeisance. His name was 
known to Sundorne, who, however, really forgot, or would 
not put himself to the trouble of identifying him. He 
remained determinedly silent. Wilfrid hesitated, feeling 
the ground precarious. Marcia resolutely withdrew her 
hand from the game, divining directly that it was up. 

Crowe crossed his legs, cleared his throat, and assuming 
a jaunty attitude, began in his nasal tones and with a 
patronizing manner of whose offensive insolence the poor 
wretch was but half aware : 


7 


98 


FA MO CIS OF INFAMOUS. 


I understand, sir, that you are the author of this,” 
indicating the manuscript of King RuJ>ert, 

Sundorne, leaning back in his chair, half lifted his eyes 
for an instant, then, after a pause, as Crowe appeared to 
be waiting for an answer, he said ; 

“ I congratulate you, sir, on your understanding." 

Wilfrid heard him aghast ; but Crowe was fortunately 
more puzzled than offended. Clumsy civility, he supposed, 
not having the most distant comprehension of the man in 
front. 

“ These pages,” he resumed, still riding the high horse, 
“ having been submitted to me by my friend Blake here, I 
have been at the pains to read them through.” 

“ You read with difficulty? ” Sundorne rejoined quietly ; 
“ I can conceive that.” 

“ It depends on the matter in hand,” retorted the 
addressed, irritated. 

“ It follows,” returned Sundorne, whilst Wilfrid remained 
speechless with dismay — no averting mischief now — “that 
in this instance you soon got out of your depth,” 

Here Wilfrid interposed with a despairing effort to throw 
oil on the waves : “Just as you came in we were discuss- 
ing ways and means of producing your drama, I and Mr. 
Crowe.” 

“ But it is wasting words,” said Marcia quickly, “ since 
Mr. Crowe imposes conditions that put the matter out of 
the question.” 

“ Conditions ? ” Sundorne flared up, irate for a moment, 
then said in a tone of rather awkward mockery, “ Pray 
let us hear. May I ask, sir, the nature of these — con- 
ditions — of yours? ” 

“ He’s come down a peg,” thought Crowe, chuckling, 
“ and I’ll bring him down a bit lower before I’ve done 
with him.” He went on aloud, dictatorially, “Yes, you 
may ask, sir; and since, as I say, my friend Mr. Blake 
has put in a word for this play of yours. I’ll do what I 
never do as a rule, give you my reasons for rejecting it ; 
you may find them of use. I won’t go so far as to say 
there’s no merit in it at all. Daresay you worked a long 
time at it. Ottilia’s a pretty figure enough — reminds one 
of the girl in — what is it? — Eomont. It’s possible some 
actress might take a fancy to the scene at the end, when 
her lover, the king, makes her furnish him with a means of 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


99 


suicide. New, too, by Jove ! Wonder nobody ever 
thought of it before. But you can’t float a drama on 
a single scene — leastways, not one so heavy as yours. To 
come now to the vital points.” 

“ Aye, the vital points,” said Sundorne, watching him 
like a lion watching a jackal. Wilfrid looked at Marcia 
in consternation ; she seemed absorbed in the combat. 

“ It’s there, sir, you break down,” the orator announced. 
“ First the title. Weak. Must have a strong title. Then 
where’s your dialogue ? Up in the clouds. Must have 
smart dialogue nowadays. Yours drags like a cart with 
the wheel off. And I utterly object, sir, to the tragic end, 
the king’s suicide.” 

“ Yet,” put in Wilfrid, in pointed reminder, “ in your 
answer to me just now I did not understand you to return 
an absolute negative.” 

Fidgeting, and with a silent curse on the actor’s obsti* 
nacy, Crowe proceeded, “ Produce it as it stands — not 
possible. A ruinous failure. Might as well send up my 
name to the Gazette at once.” 

“ It would not be for the first time,” remarked Sun- 
dorne distinctly. Crowe’s financial delinquencies in past 
times had been of public notoriety. But the oracle was 
too busy laying down the law to have caught the paren- 
thesis. 

“ Before I have anything to say to it, it must be remo- 
delled in toto,'^ he proceeded. “ Cut it down to half the 
length to begin with. And you must bring your hero out 
of it somehow. Can’t you make the girl of noble birth 
and let them marry ? Then let me look at it again.” 

“ Nothing else ? ” asked Sundorne mildly. 

“ Well, I ought to have begun with the prime objection. 
The blank verse sticks in my throat. Our actors can’t 
manage it, everybody says, always excepting our friend 
here and one or two more. Makes the public laugh when 
you want them to cry. Why not put it into plain, honest 
English prose? ” 

“ Aye, why not ? ” echoed Sundorne, in a tone that 
mollified Crowe and mystified Wilfrid by its feint suavity 
and submission. 

“ And then, if I think it improved. I’ll see what can be 
done,” concluded Crowe with ostentatious magnanimity. 
“ I shall have to put it into the hands of one of our fellows, 


lOO 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


Hackit or Mauleverer, who understand their business— 
which, excuse me, sir, you don’t — to trim and polish it 
up — and Gad, sir ! ” he said humorously, “you’ll not know 
your own child again.” 

“ Ah ! ” Sundorne drew a long breath and grasped his 
manuscript tightly. 

“ But you mustn’t be in a hurry,” added Crowe. “ I’ve 
pieces accepted that have been waiting for years,” — tho- 
roughly satisfied with the lesson administered ; and with the 
masterly manner in which he had extricated himself from 
his dilemma with Wilfrid, he rose and took his hat to go, — 
“ aye, and better pieces than yours, though of course we 
don’t expect you to believe that. Conceit, thy name is au- 
thorship. Why, damn it, sir, what the ” 

Sundorne, as Crowe delivered his parting oration, stood 
up, and at the finish his passion exploded — he struck the 
manager across the face with the roll of paper in his hand, 
and exclaimed in a tempest of wrath, and voice of thunder 
that drowned Crowe’s execrations : 

“Silence! with your idiot’s jabber and huckster’s chaf- 
fering. Keep to your scurvy trade of lying advertisements 
and cooking accounts. Dare to talk to me, Arthur Sun- 
dorne I Do you suppose I would not rather destroy the 
work of my hands than have it contaminated by passing 
through yours ? ” 

All had risen, Marcia flushed and still,Wilfrid appalled for 
the results, Crowe panting and furious, but looking round as 
if for the police, his only resource — an arrant moral coward, 
he shrank from breasting the storm he had raised. More- 
over Sundorne looked so formidable in his anger that Crowe 
quailed secretly with physical nervousness. 

“ But for the presence of this lady,” he stammered out, 
“ I would — I would ” 

Wilfrid here came to the rescue of his embarrassment 
and shouldered him out of the room. Directly the door 
was between him and his antagonist his valor revived. 

“ I am extremely sorry for this, Crowe,” said Whlfrid. 
“ But I tell you frankly you brought it on yourself.” 

“ He shall apologize, he shall apologize — I’ll go in and 
force him to on the spot. Or no. I’ll have him fined for 
assault. You and your wife are witnesses that he as- 
saulted me.” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


loi 


Wilfrid did his best to soothe him and make light of the 
matter, half rallying, half conciliating, as he followed his 
storming employer to the door. Crowe bounded into his 
brougham, and drove away vowing condign vengeance on 
the ruffian who had struck him. 

Marcia, the moment the door was shut, had turned to 
Sundorne, who was still in a towering passion, exclaiming 
impulsively : 

“ Oh, thank you ! If you knew — how it does me good 
to see some one not afraid to defy that hound ! ” 

Sundorne smiled grimly. He had been stirred to his 
depths, and his violent mental disturbance abated but 
slowly. Now Wilfrid rejoined them, saying; 

“ Well, you have made him awfully savage. He only 
got his deserts. Still I am sorry for what has occurred.” 

“ Spare your regrets,” said Sundorne drily. “ I had 
rather kick the cur and let him howl, than submit to the 
shame of any kind of association with him.” 

“ Wilfrid,” said Marcia emphatically, “ he is too odious 
to-be borne with. You have tolerated him quite long 
enough.” 

“ I think so too,” Wilfrid agreed. “ But I had rather it 
had stopped short of a violent breach just at this moment, 
since that is the quarter where I have most practical in- 
fluence to exert in your behalf,” he added to his fiery 
guest. 

Sundorne extended a hand to husband and wife, and 
said : “ My friends, you may felicitate me on this, at least, 
that for the representation of King Rupert I am inde- 
pendent of the good offices of reptiles like your visitor 
who has just been ejected. The expense, the main ob- 
stacle, has been unexpectedly met. My neighbor, Mr. 
Mainwaring, has generously offered me his concurrence in 
the undertaking, and in no niggardly spirit. Whatever 
the necessary funds, they will be forthcoming. The rest 
is in our hands to settle.” 

An hour later Sundorne departed, having almost for- 
gotten the breach of the peace of which he had been 
guilty. Something too insignificant to dwell on ; a mere 
kick to a brute who had bit him. Marcia and Wilfrid 
could not dismiss it so lightly as that. 

“ How on earth shall I pacify Crowe t ” said Wilfrid. 
“ This foolish affair will be the common talk. He threatens 
to take out a summons, and what not.” 


102 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


“ Do not try.” said Marcia. “ You are too lenient with 
him, Wilfrid, it encourages him in his gross familiarity and 
intolerable impudence. Such creatures deserve to be 
treated now and then as Sundorne. treated him. They 
don’t feel snubs, and must be pole-axed, to keep them in 
their place.” 

“ Crowe is a low animal,” said Wilfrid, “ but he has no 
idea how offensive he is ; he cannot be anything else.” 

“ One might have known,” mused Marcia aloud, “ that 
between him and Sundorne no sort of collaboration was 
possible. It was a mistake to bring them together. They 
were bound to fight.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Wilfrid. “ And yet, as it turns out, 
our friend is not so utterly reckless as I thought. I con- 
fess I gave him up when I saw him let out his rage on the 
man who had his interests in his power. But they were 
not ; and Sundorne knew it. He had made sure of this 
man Mainwaring before he insulted Crowe.” 


CHAPTER V. 

DAWN. 

He could do this for you. Ask him.” 

Marcia’s words, that rang and rang again in Sundorne’s 
ears the night of his first visit to Shelsley Hall. 

The old thought, that had come and gone as a flash of 
resentment at the iniquity of fate. Born again in the 
shape of a practical suggestion. Co-operation versus 
Revolution. 

The stranger was received at the Hall a trifle awkwardly, 
but without any of the patronizing airs that would have 
been a deadlock to further intercourse, by placing him in 
a false position. Little Madame Fanny could do no more 
towards the entertaining of such a guest than the tiny toy 
terrier she sat nursing, a pet which was the one bright spot 
in her life, and which she, in her diminutive and dainty 
elegance, decidedly resembled. But she welcomed this 
harmless distraction for the invalid. A strain of magna- 
nimity in Sundorne’s nature stayed him from passing judg- 
ment on a fellow-creature in the pitiable physical condition 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


103 


of his host, this young man of great possessions whose life 
hung by a thread, whose daily interest was to mark the 
fluctuations in his failing pulse, or the supposed efficacy of 
some new drug, and for whom crack physicians could do 
no more than fan for a little the dying flame of a doomed 
existence, as joyless, in its way, as Sundorne’s. True, 
Mainwaring had his pretty young wife ; but how /r/j/^was 
her lot I Her dutiful devotion to him was not devoid of 
affection, but she had not the faintest touch of romance in 
her disposition to gild the situation over for her ; and the 
sick man’s morbid imagination would not always spare him 
the thought of the release that his demise would bring to 
his helpmate. He had friends, of course, though an egoist 
by nature and circumstance, friends ever ready to borrow 
his money, eat his grapes, and flatter his verses. He fan- 
cied he hated flattery. Few do that, and poor Mainwaring 
was certainly not one of those few ; but sometimes it tasted 
insipid. Fanny praised, and was sincere ; but, alas ! he 
knew that the effort of mind represented by the couplet 
inside a cracker seemed to her rather miraculous. 

Sundorne’s simple, independent manners piqued him as 
a novelty. The fellow was not rude, as people had led 
him to expect. Condemned to read Mainwaring’s verses, 
he made no murderous comments. It would be like 
trampling on the tiny dog — wanton cruelty. He approved 
the subject, suggested an alteration or two, and abstained 
from pointing out that it was a mere reproduction of a 
famous poem on the same theme. 

Mainwaring had been reading Tasso at Sorrento^ and 
worked himself up to a pitch of effusive admiration. It 
was an idea, he told Sundorne, that he had had himself ; 
but he never could make up his mind how to throw it into 
form. “ To have written your Tasso^' he declared wist- 
fully, “ I would give half my fortune.” 

Sundorne flared out : 

“ To what purpose is it to write — to have written — to 
knowj if your work goes no further? Columbus discovered 
America in his heart, but had he not found a king to fur- 
nish him with ships and men, his heart and his thought 
must have died together. Ah ! in those days the kings of 
this world, the rich, sometimes vindicated their wealth by 
the way they spent it.” 

“ Is it such an expensive affair to bring out a play ? ” 
asked young Mainwaring, with curiosity. 


104 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


“ Men will stake five times as much on the riding of a 
jockey or the boxing of a prize-fighter,” returned Sundorne. 
“ But managers are mere shopkeepers, incapable of a great 
action. Not one would risk a venture, though the pro- 
mise of a new world were there, with the prospect of being 
out of pocket by it. Columbus might go about his business, 
those who could afford him the means to make that immor- 
tal voyage shaking their heads, and asking how soon they 
would receive their own again, and with what usury.” 

Then, as Mainwaring showed interest, Sundorne plainly 
stated his own case, and the financial obstacles which 
blocked the way to an adequate representation of his new 
drama. King Rupert. He was a bad diplomatist ; but 
Mainwaring, who indulged in hazy grand dreams unfulfilled 
of art patronage, was bitten from the first moment by the 
notion of heading the enterprise, and met him half way. 
He had been genuinely impressed by Sundorne personally ; 
and was further actuated by the underthought that all this 
might clear the path for his own five-act tragedy. Fair 
Rosamond^ supposing he ever finished it. If you can’t be 
Virgil, at least you can be Maecenas. The part is less fas- 
cinating, but more feasible in a general way. He was 
ready to promise anything that night. 

Sundorne called again the next morning, doubting the 
humor might have passed — a sick fool’s whim. Not so. 
Allured by the tempting artistic distinction thus possibly 
to be won, and without stirring from his invalid-chair, 
Mainwaring had volunteered to guarantee the necessary 
funds for the production of Sundorne’s drama, and author- 
ized him to make a definite offer to this effect to Carroll, 
whose concurrence was, of course, indispensable. 

So the face of the world had changed for Arthur Sun- 
borne, and the metamorphosis had all come about in a day 
and a night. The ladder of fame is a false figure of speech, 
as implying that much fame is not to be acquired per sal- 
tum. Talk of the ladder of desert. There, progress is 
less the sport of hazard ; but fame is a queer, capricious 
thing, like our climate, and no more to be forecast with 
certainty than rain or shine. 

Some day, no doubt, you who have climbed high on the 
ladder of excellence are sure of your just measure. But 
you may die of want, or chagrin, or even of old age in the 
meantime. The prophet is stoned, and the Stoner’s 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


loS 

children subscribe to pension his widow and raise a monu- 
ment, and cheap trippers bring away an ivy leaf or a 
blade of grass from the hallowed grave. 

But in this age of electricity and education, merited 
fame may come with a burst and spread with a rapidity in- 
conceivable until the other day. The year that stellifies a 
man may begin for him and find him, like Sundorne, a less 
important personage in the world than his own cobbler. 
Outside a small and uninfluential clique his name was un- 
heard of, and there it was a byword. Quondam adherents 
blushed for their transient faith in this pseudo-genius, this 
claimant for honors and recipient of wholesale rebuffs. 

A day comes whem something of such a man’s is given 
to the world, who all these years has been insensibly 
changing, moving in his direction, at an opportune 
moment, and makes its mark. And the world is won as 
by a throw of the die, and in a few months his crudest 
juvenile effusions will find a golden market, his feeblest 
work command an admiration as indiscriminate as the old 
contempt. His name is on every tongue and in every 
public print ; his photograph a popular study ; his door is 
beset ; his presence sued for as a favor. The accumulated 
wages, in love and money, of the toil of years pour into his 
hands. It has happened again and again within living 
memory. His name is known from Dan to Beersheba ; 
his thoughts nourish men’s minds, his creative fancy their 
imaginations. All the while he was climbing that other 
ladder — of merit — ^no token reached him of favors to 
come. 

“ Who is he ? ” was the question that ran round the 
stalls that afternoon when the curtain fell on Tasso at 
Sorrento. Some rising light, some new man, most 
supposed. 

From one of the upper circles, where Sundorne had 
chosen to ensconce himself, he frowned down unnoticed. 
No recruit, but an old soldier, all scars. One who had 
paid the full score of his strife with fate. In his tribula- 
tions there was nothing rare ; only in the tenacity of his 
plan of action, quite unaffected under the killing by inches 
of his immense trust in his future, was there something 
anomalous. Fortune declared war long ago. Friends fell 
off ; enemies shot poisoned arrows ; critics jeered. Sun- 
dorne flourished. War was no uncongenial element j it was 


FAMOUS OR /^FAMOUS. 


lo6 

rest that was mortal to him ; and the deadly peace of 
obscurity that had latterly settled round him had brought 
him, for one moment, within sight of defeat. His purpose 
was part of himself, like his right hand ; but one day your 
right hand will fail you, and Sundorne had had reminders 
that he too was but flesh and blood, as for instance a 
fainting-fit that had surprised him once in his cottage : the 
queer sensation, when he realized that he had been uncon- 
scious. It was no more than nature’s tardy protest against 
overtaxed endurance and self-neglect ; he had passed the 
day without food, for want of inclination to touch fare so 
little tempting as offered ; but the passing infirmity gave 
him his first lesson in fear — fear of the failure of his 
energies ; and he felt like a man who has begun to die, 
and has not seen his desire fulfilled upon his enemies. 
He, his own and his only support, on the winter-bound 
elevation where he had taken his stand, was breaking. 

Hope, the deliverer, had come in good time ; the sun- 
god at whose touch the snow-pall, dispelled, reveals the 
green and glorious world underneath. 

The hermitage on the common was shut up, the hermit 
flown, though retaining the old den as a shelter to seek, if 
so minded. Sundorne was installed in lodgings near the 
Blakes. He showed himself in no hurry to modify his 
independent habits, the simplicity of his ways and dress, 
in accordance with urban usage. And although he was 
now receiving for lasso what would have enabled him to 
live in comparative clover, his ignorance, his impatience 
of troublesome details, and absorption in his work doomed 
his profits to find their way into other people’s pockets, 
leaving scant equivalent in his own. Before a week was 
out he was quarrelling with his barely-acquired bread and 
butter. His door-bell appeared to him never silent ; his 
working hours were spoilt ; the mere knowledge that 
tedious persons would try and fight their way in, the 
bustle of the street, want of the sense of privacy, and 
lodging-house vexations innumerable, fatally disturbed 
him. Why, it was better at the kennel on the common. 

Once or twice, in despair, he came over to the Blakes, 
petitioning for an hour’s solitude in a quiet room. A 
popular actor’s residence offers no ideal seclusion ; but 
there was a summer-house they had built in the garden, 
and fitted up as a smoking-lounge, with fireplace, book- 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


107 


shelves, writing-table, and easy-chairs. Marcia suggested 
that they should put it at Sundorne’s disposal There he 
would be secure from molestation by their friends or his 
own, and might play the hermit the day long if he chose. 
He was given a key of the gate into the road ; thus 
he could come and go without passing through the house, 
undisturbing and undisturbed. The plan succeeded per- 
fectly. The consciousness that that haven was open to 
him was a sedative, whether he made use of it or not. 

A compromise had settled Crowe. Leave to Carroll to 
disport himself from Easter throughout the season as the 
right hand of the new firm of Mainwaring and Sundorne, 
on premises lately rebuilt, and re-christened the New Isis 
Theatre. The revival of Rie?izi was postponed till the 
autumn, and the Royal to be underlet for a few months 
from the conclusion of Carrolls present engagement to an 
American speculator. 

The campaign fairly set on foot, half a dozen incidents 
conspired to lend it additional prominence. 

A virulent attack on Tasso at Sorre?ito appeared in 
print, by a rival playwright, whom Sundorne had openly 
and not inaptly spoken of as a “ chartered idiot.” The 
malice of the penman was too apparent ; its violence 
defeated its own end, and stuck another feather in Arthur 
Sundorne’s cap. A clever burlesque made his name known 
to what he called the “ swinish multitude ; ” who after see- 
ing Carroll’s performance of Tasso travestied by their 
favorite comedian, lost no more time in making acquain- 
tance with the original. The rumored production, at 
Easter, of a more ambitious piece by the same hand, 
under favorable auspices, had the a priori interest of a 
Leap in the Dark. Managers of the Crowe stamp shook 
their heads, said it was a bolstered-up affair, and must 
break down. It was out of the question that it could pay. 
The rest was a detail. 

Wilfrid threw himself the more zealously into the prepa- 
rations, an arduous task, as it proved, for one whose days 
were already well filled, and who was acting nightly at the 
Royal in a fatiguing programme. Marcia seconded him 
vigorously. No meddlesome interference, but her hand 
passed everywhere over weak places and crude arrange- 
ments, like a master’s over the daubs of his pupils. Never 
before had occasion arisen for her to turn her six years* 


io8 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


observation of professional matters to such active and 
varied account. She must relieve Wilfrid of all possible 
disagreeables of stage-management ; talk the actors and 
actresses out of their tempers and extravagant demands ; 
have patience with Mainwaring in his naive inanities and 
pretensions to determine how things should be done, treat 
his frivolous complaints seriously, answer his interminable 
letters — her hands were full. 

Sundorne, as she was the first to perceive, it was vain to 
try and stop from making enemies ; their opposition must 
be thwarted, as far as possible, by fostering the excessive 
zeal with which he could inspire his partisans. 

For the rest, an infamously bad follower, he was in his 
element as dictator. His inexhaustible physical endurance, 
quick perceptions, grasp of general dramatic aspects, 
whilst with a lynx-eye for particulars neglected, won him 
the surprised respect of more than one old theatrical hand. 
Sundorne was in fact only half a dreamer, they now under- 
stood, and he rose in their estimations accordingly. 


CHAPTER VI. 

STRAWS SHEW THE WIND. 

Marcia, with Bertha to help her, was busy with the mis- 
cellaneous correspondence which King Rupert involved, 
— the whole of it, legal, commercial, social, frivolous, 
artistic, had somehow drifted into her hands, — when Sun- 
dorne came in upon them in his usual unceremonious 
manner — outrunning the servant who would have an- 
nounced him — but with unusual aspect. Bertha had no 
idea a man could look so ferociously angry ; she started 
up as if at an alarm of fire. Marcia too was alert on the 
instant, but serene as the captain of the fire-brigade. 

“ What has happened? ” she asked him. 

“This,” he said, thrusting into her hand that day’s issue 
of a widely-circulated paper. 

There, under the pacific heading, “ A Contemporary 
Portrait,” Sundorne was made the subject of a ruthless 
cannonade, ingeniously devised to hit him in the most vul- 
nerable point. His person, origin, and past life were 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


109 


maliciously caricatured, his literary claims exposed for 
abject ridicule and contempt, under a perfectly transparent 
disguise, and with no more compunction than is shown in 
advertising the disreputable looks and shady antecedents 
of an absconding bankrupt. A warning, to all those 
whom it might concern, that here was an unsuccessful 
charlatan, a Grub Street impostor, a beggar who had 
knocked at the doors of the credulous and indulgent all his 
life ; a chaotic babbler who masqueraded as a misappre- 
ciated genius, and now and then took in, by pandering to 
their vanity, amiable persons whose heads were as soft as 
their hearts. This stage-king, in patched clothes, and glad 
to eat bacon in a garret, was indebted for his tinsel 
crown to the misplaced charity which parasites success- 
fully court. Mr. Mainwaring’s were better bestowed on 
hospitals, orphan asylums, and works of public utility, 
than in fostering the grotesque conceit and prolonging the 
absurd pretensions of his present prottgt^ a penniless 
quack dramatist, of whom otherwise the public might con- 
gratulate themselves they had heard the last. 

Marcia saw the real mischief at a glance. The lampoon 
was a trifle in itself ; but it was a trap into which Sun- 
dorne had walked post haste. He was in a towering fury. 
Marcia’s eyes flashed as she read. 

“ It is garbage ! ” she exclaimed passionately, “ and 
ought to be burned by the common hangman.” 

Bertha was startled by her responsive vehemence, for- 
getting how the procedure of Petruccio can be applied at 
least as efficiently to the taming of the lion as of the shrew. 
And Marcia’s anger, however demonstrative, was sincere. 

“ So the curs yelp,” said Sundorne contentedly. “ It is 
as if they saw the rope twisting to hang them with.” 

“ Your answer ? ” said Marcia instantly. 

“ Is here.” And he rapidly read out to them his just- 
penned reply. 

Bertha stood aghast as she listened to this diatribe, 
in which Sundorne, impartially, slaughtered first foe and 
then friend. After pummelling his antagonists to his 
heart’s content, paying them back in their own coin of 
abuse, with exorbitant interest, he went on to allude to 
his so-called patron as a richard on whose purse he had 
done him the honor to draw, here granting him the oppor- 
tunity of sanctifying his ill-gotten thousands (there had 


no 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


been a planter among Mainwaring’s maternal ancestors), 
and of doing the world a service sufficient to redeem an 
otherwise profitless existence .... 

Bertha looked at Marcia in despair. Ingratitude apart, 
the retort was suicidal. The affront seemed to challenge 
Mainwaring to withdraw his support, with which Sundorne 
in the libel had been taunted as his sole strength. Marcia 
read on, and re-read, nodding approvingly. 

“ I think that will make the vipers writhe,” said Sun- 
dorne, running over his favorite passage, in which his 
battery was directed against the gentlemen of the press. 

“ And you really might add,” struck in Marcia, taking 
the paper from his hand to look, “ that the wisest thing 
about ‘ A Contemporary Portrait ’ is its anonymity. Just 
let the writer append his name, and what went up as the 
rocket comes down like the stick.” 

“ Well, and so I will,” said he, hastily superadding the 
emendation. 

Marcia looked again at the paper, then began doubtfully : 

Only I wish I were a man, and could harden my heart a 
little. That poor valetudinarian creature at Shelsley ! If 
only he could have been left out of this ! ” 

“ Mainwaring? ” exclaimed Sundorne in surprise. 

“ Your friendship is his best honor ; still towards you 
he has acted well according to his lights. Could you not 
spare him this mention?” 

“ Leave him out? Let the insult pass that pretends to 
expose me as the satellite of a rich noodle — that fainiant 
whose life, like his wife’s lap-dog’s, is complete in being 
petted and nursed, combed and fed ? ” 

“ Oh, never ! But why put him and his failings forward 
any more than the machinist or stage carpenter ? Ah, let 
him be, and his gold ! He has done what he could. Is it 
for you to taunt one so immeasurably below you with his 
helpless condition? Everybody knows it. You might 
let all you say here be felt, without saying it exactly. 
Would it not be even more telling, so ? ” 

She spoke with impetuosity, much more as if venting 
her own feelings than as giving advice. Sundorne was 
drawn to listen, though still recalcitrant. 

“ You think I treat the fellow too harshly,” he said. 

Of course he is innocent in this matter ; but that I can- 
not help. There, let it stand and go off to the printer. It 
is all well deserved.” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


Ill 


“ All and more,” said Marcia heartily. “ But since in 
this he has behaved well, why not spare him these home- 
thrusts ? The writer of this trash knows as well as you 
what it is worth, what Mainwaring is wortli, and what you 
are. I believe it was done to provoke you to quarrel with 
him ; your enemies’ last sally ; an attempt to draw your 
fire on your banker, bring about a split, and the postpone- 
ment of King Rupert'' 

“ You think they wanted to draw my fire ? ” he repeated 
taken aback. 

“ Did you not suspect it yourself? ” 

“ No,” said Sundorne simply. “ It never occurred to 
me that that was their drift.” 

But in a few minutes he felt sure of it. “ That would 
be making them a present of the victory. They shall 
not have it so cheap. We shall see now how mild 
and dignified we can be.” Dowm he sat immediate- 
ly, and wrote a brief letter, the moderation of whose 
wording was inspired by the sense of the unplea- 
sant surprise his calm rejoinder would be to the foe. He 
made Marcia read it, and adopted a trifling alteration she 
suggested. Mainwaring was barely and formally alluded 
to. Marcia offered to copy it and despatch it for him at 
once. 

“ Thank you,” he said emphatically, as they parted ; the 
word was not often on his lips. 

When the door had closed upon him and the shadows of 
his wrath, Bertha drew a long breath and exclaimed : 

“ Marcia, what a wonderful woman you are ! You twist 
that man round with your little finger.” 

Marcia rose and walked to the window, disturbed by 
the sense of the narrowly averted catastrophe. “ No, 
Bertha,” she replied. “ No one could work on Sundorne 
like that, calculating, from outside. If I can help him to 
change his mind, it is because I sympathize so completely 
with the mind he changes.” 

Sympathize ?" echoed Bertha with dubious emphasis. 

“ Well,” said Marcia contemplatively, “ I think my 
ideal would be an absolutely fearless man.” 

Yet that might be linked with ingratitude, hardness, 
cruelty even.” 

‘‘Might? Must,” returned Marcia, “in their common 
meaning. Here I mean that I share to the full his reckless 


II2 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


contempt for the pitiful creatures that surround him, some 
hostile, others friendly, but all unworthy to be his servant’s 
servant, if you come to merit. Were I him, I should very 
likely have acted as he did. Being myself, I try to deter him, 
and if I succeed it is probably because he feels that my 
point of view is the same as his own. Here he was mi s- 
taken, led away by his implacable violence. I like him lo 
wreak it upon his enemies. They cannot hate him worse 
than they do, and may respect him the more for his power 
of hard hitting. But you should forbear with your friends, 
your allies. Napoleon need not taunt his own soldiers 
with being the mere food for powder that they are.” 

“ Strange friendship ! ” muttered Bertha. “ I begin to 
think that Arthur Sundorne is a rather terrible man.” 

“ Did you take him for a ‘ good fellow ’ ? ” asked Mar- 
cia, with faint derision. “ Nature doesn’t make your great 
men so.” 

Bertha thought of Wilfrid, the first of men in her eyes. 
No doubt he had his faults, known fully perhaps only to 
his wife ; but at least they could not be of this order. 

“ Were he the greatest man that ever breathed, I should 
hate him, for the monstrous ingratitude that could return 
Mr. Mainwaring’s liberality with such cruel inconsidera- 
tion for his infirmities of mind and body,” she said con- 
vincedly. 

“ Do we take into consideration our ingratitude to the 
lower creation? Do we hesitate to wring animals’ necks, 
or cut their throats, when it suits us, because they have 
been useful to us beforehand ? After all, take away the 
money, and there is more difference between Sundorne and 
that shadow of a man and fragment of a mind than between 
Cecil Mainwaring and an intelligent collie — not to mention 
their respective use to their fellow-creatures.” 

Bertha laughed, unwilling to agree, unable to contradict. 
For her the author of King Rupert was a dark problem, 
from the solution of which, moreover, she instinctively 
shrank. Marcia, for whatever reason, found herself able 
to follow — sometimes even to forecast — the apparent va- 
garies of his disposition — an insight which reacted on her 
own mind with the power, welcome or unwelcome, of a 
new light placed there. For personalities exist whom 
to know is, for other personalities, like the discovery of 
some great terrestrial law, putting an altered complexion 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


on the order of things, past and present, in nature or 
human nature, respectively. 

Sundorne’s reply appeared, with good effect. His 
aggressors could not suspect from it how near they had 
come to gaining their object, how narrow had been their 
intended victim’s escape from a damaging step. He had 
some inkling of it himself when the storm of his wrath was 
spent ; inducing a new feeling towards Marcia, as a source 
of moral help. Help yourself, for neither God nor man 
will help you,” was his stern precept, drawn from ex- 
perience. That this despaired-of crutch should be found 
in a woman was the strangest part of the matter ; but you 
get used to strange things. Wilfrid’s wife Marcia was cer- 
tainly an uncommon character. A great personality, that, 
far from thirsting for self-assertion, readily absorbed itself 
in the existence of another. Sundorne found himself com- 
ing to consult her judgment more than once in the course 
of the weeks that followed ; it was a means of clearing his 
own mind. He understood that he would have tripped 
ruinously but for her. A breach with Mainwaring might 
only retard his opportunity, but it might do that indefin- 
itely, like a Chancery suit, till the costs, so to speak, had 
swallowed up the estate. 

Once — he had been working in the summer-house till 
nightfall. An idea for a drama on the old subject of 
Francesca da Rimini, which had haunted his head years 
ago, had suddenly and unaccountably chosen that day to 
be born, assumed life, form, action, precipitated itself on the 
paper. His faculties were all on the stretch, thought, ima- 
gination, fancy, memory, abnormally stimulated, fastened 
on the conception of the dramatic outline. This done, the 
bond snapped, his pen dropped from his hand, and in the 
abrupt release from tense preoccupation he did not know 
where he was. At the cottage on the heath he had last 
grappled, grappled fruitlessly, with this idea ; all between 
was a blank ; and there he now believed himself, as he 
partly came back to his common senses. Aye, a small, low 
dusky room — his books — no space for anything else ; and 
he is waking, as he always wakes, from the dreamland of 
work to the hell of reality — hopeless, vacant impotence 
and misery. 

Nay ; his eyes rested wonderingly on a handful of 
violets ; their perfume pervaded the air — violets and 

8 


114 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


white jonquils — and his feet rested on a bearskin, which 
formed no part of his poor household goods then and 
there. 

He leaned back, still imperfectly awake, then slowly his 
faculties get into their places and present realities come 
to the front. 

He is in his garden sanctum at his friend’s house. 
Tasso is at this moment being applauded for the hundredth 
time at the Theatre Royal, and the date for the produc- 
tion of King Rupert three weeks hence is fixed. 

The wind blew open the side window. Looking down 
the garden he sees another sight, by the lamplight in the 
house, opposite him. 

A fair woman’s form, bending over the table where she 
is writing ; he cannot see her face, only her head and the 
curve of her neck. 

And as he sat he watched that figure like a vision that 
must fade anon ; an inspiring revelation of which your 
eyes, ere it pass, seek to take eternal possession. 

Marcia was writing some important letters for Wilfrid. 
Her little son was playing about the room, when sud- 
denly he gave a small scream that startled her. 

‘‘ What is it, Aubrey? ” 

“ A face at the window,” said Aubrey, who was timid 
and imaginative, coming to her side. “ I cried out — it 
was like ” 

“ Like what ? ” asked Marcia soothingly. 

“ Like the Erl King in that song — you know, mother, 
the song we make you sing to us.” 

“ It is Sundorne,” said Marcia, with her hand on the 
little head. 

“No, the summer-house has been dark all this time. 
He is not there,” and he clung to her, beset by ghostly 
terrors. Do you think it was the Erl King ? and what 
can he have come for ? ” 

Marcia, wisely tender with the nerves of the little 
ghost-seer, kissed him, and told him cheerfully she would 
go and look. She stood still at the window a moment, 
then turned back to the child, saying : 

“ Oh, it is only Sundorne, not the Erl King a bit. I 
think he is just going home. But, Aubrey, it is past bed- 
time. Run to nurse.” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


”5 


Left alone, Marcia raised her hand to her head in 
bewilderment. Was she dreaming, like Aubrey ? Was it 
Sundorne or his ghost out there in the dark and the cold, 
his aspect scared and distraught like a sleep-walker’s 
making signs, as it were, to her to come out to him } 

Her whole expression had changed. The mask of self- 
constraint we all wear, and without which social and 
domestic life would be impossible, was broken through by 
a rush of merely personal feeling — dread, trouble, per- 
plexity, and part, but not wholly, painful expectation. 

The carriage was announced to take her to the theatre, 
but she lingered more minutes than she knew. It seemed 
to her immediately that Sundorne walked in, in flesh and 
blood, his countenance still disturbed and ghastly pale. 
It was no wonder Aubrey had taken fright. 

“ You are going out,” he said, surprised and mortified, 
it appeared, to see her with her cloak on, just when he 
wanted to talk. 

“ Oh, presently,” said Marcia, letting it fall from her 
shoulders carelessly ; and going up to the fire she sat 
down to warm herself before starting. The flames played 
on her hair and cheek ; her face was tranquil and atten- 
tive again, her eyes were downcast. Sundorne stood 
looking straight into the glowing coals, the unabated 
ferment of his brain bespeaking itself in his least move- 
ment of hand, or foot, or feature. 

“ When I laid down my pen just now,” he said, pres- 
ently, “ I thought I was back in prison.” 

“ No, no,” murmured Marcia, pained by the sadness of 
his intonation. 

“ Aye, a prisoner condemned to life-long captivity. A 
horrible thing,” he said excitedly, and spoke on with a 
terrible eloquence of his deserted, denuded years, and the 
despair that seemed their inevitable goal. The pent-up 
bitterness he was generally too intent on active work to 
let flow, surged forth like a devouring flood ; he lived lus 
life over again as he spoke, and made her feel with him in 
the retrospection : that he had outstood what would have 
killed some, sent others mad, and disabled most; and was 
least to be envied for his fortitude. 

“ The world owes you great amends,” said Marcia, by- 
and-by. “ It will make them now.” 

“ I think,” he said, with a curious intentness, “ that it 
will always feel I am its enemy.” 


Il6 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


“Because,” asked Marcia, “you have made it your 
eternal debtor? 

Sundorne did not reply ; he appeared lost in his medi- 
tations. 

“ Must you go ? ” he said abruptly, when at length she 
rose. 

“ I must,” said Marcia mechanically, inwardly reluctant 
— she thought from his face he was just going to tell her 
of what he had been writing — “ it is late already.” 

He wished her good-night distantly; his face had 
clouded ; the cloud followed Marcia, as she drove. 


“ The lion came in and kept me,” she told Wilfrid, to 
account for her unpunctuality. “ He was in a sort of 
poet’s trance. I am sure he has been writing something 
new and splendid. Do try and find out from him what it 
is.” 

“ Don’t you think,” said Wilfrid sensibly, “ that we had 
better see King Rupert launched first, before we trouble 
ourselves about his successor ? ” 

For a play in truth is like the hop-harvest, of which 
those who know say it must be ripe, gathered, stored, nay 
brewed into beer, before you can be sure it is no failure. 


CHAPTER VII. 

“ KING RUPERT.” 

To the English in general, the date of the first representa- 
tion of King Rupert, “ A romantic tragedy, in three acts, 
by Arthur Sundorne,” came and went, no red-letter day 
on that account, indistinguishable so far from yesterday or 
to-morrow ; a slight fall in stocks and the scratching of 
Cantelope for the Two Thousand affecting far more of them 
and far more nearly than could the apparition of Shake- 
speare rediviiis. Only for the small and unimportant 
clique, somewhat grandiloquently styled “ the literary 
world,” had the coming event any consequence whatsoever ; 
and even there you could count upon your fingers those 
who did not care infinitely more for where they were going 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


117 

to dine than for the fate of any play not their own make, 
although its success might mark a turning point in the tide 
of dramatic fashions, and its failure be, as it must, the 
death-knell of Sundorne’s resuscitated hopes. 

Of this handful of enthusiasts none took more lively 
interest in the result than Austin Day. • The Opportunist 
critic — for all his semblance of a dictator his power lay in 
his quickness to feel the pulse of public sentiment and 
forecast any imminent change — on a fuller acquaintance 
with Sundorne and his works, had accepted him as the 
man of the future, the man of his own prophesy, who should 
initiate a revival of the glories of the serious English drama. 
Formerly he had only allowed him an appearance of genius ; 
now he set him up as a beacon : no meteor, no firework, 
as halting opinion said, but a fixed star. 

As for Sundorne, he waited for the end, unmoved in the 
main, as an old soldier awaits the fortune of battle, though 
he fumed and stormed about refractory details as might 
the veteran sergeant about the pipe-claying of a recruit’s 
belt or the polishing of a musket. Wilfrid, frightfully 
fagged and worried by three months of the double duties of 
acting and management, exclaimed impatiently to Marcia 
that he should be thankful when that first night was over, 
for good or ill. On his account, Marcia must agree. 

On her own, it was with a pang of nameless regret that 
she saw the day begin that must end the struggle. It would 
leave a great void in her life. These three months she had 
been living for a great cause ; grown to regard the call to 
fight for it as a ])roud privilege ; straining every nerve to 
get the better of battalions of hindrances ; Crowe’s direct 
malice or insidious intrigue ; Wilfrid’s variability and 
nervous disorders ; Mainwaring’s ridiculous whims and 
foolish interference ; Sundorne’s outspoken arrogance and 
headstrong action. She felt sometimes like a stage-coach 
driver, conducting a team of eight frisky mustangs along a 
dangerous mountain road. The next station reached, the 
reins would pass out of her hands, and she would miss her 
hazardous occupation — gone. 

The success of King Rupert^ which to her seemed a 
foregone conclusion, would assure Sundorne’s position. 
He, with his unexhausted powers, would virtually be 
master of the situation, and independent of friends in par- 
ticular. Their relation, his goal once reached, could never 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


Ii8 

be the same, never so close again. He would have troops 
of friends and assistants to choose from ; she and her hus- 
band would only be two in the huge crowd of admirers of 
the celebrity he would speedily become. And from that 
prospect she recoiled as from some inconceivable, intoler- 
able deprivation. 

Well, to-night first, then the deluge. And her excite- 
ment left her cool judgment and quick observation uncon- 
fused. It was she who dressed Bertha for her part, pointed 
out some trifling deficiencies that had escaped notice in 
the scenic details, soothed a weeping super whom Sun- 
dorne had wrathfully ousted at the last moment as incom- 
petent. “ Only for to-night,” she whispered, to the 
despairing girl. “ It’s so very important. When once it 
works smoothly he will put you back again.” She was at 
ease about Wilfrid, confident that, whatever fell short in 
the coming performance, it would not be his impersonation 
of the, to him, supremely congenial part of the young king. 
She joined her father in the front just before the rising of 
the curtain. 

“ Who’s the fellow in Austin Day’s box,” asked one 
“ first-nighter” of his neighbor and fellow, “ glowering like 
Byron’s Satan ? ” 

“ Why, Sundorne of course, don’t you know ? ” respond- 
ed the other, who had seen him for the first time the night 
before at the dress rehearsal. 

“ That, Sundorne ? By Jove ! He looks a rough cus- 
tomer.” 

“ Not so rough as he is,” was the rejoinder. “ I thought 
he’d have boxed a young lady’s ears last night for bungling. 
But he only called her a born idiot, and turned her off.” 

The audience, regarding their programmes, certified with 
pleasure that King Rupert was not the historical play 
which the title had led some of them vaguely to expect, 
and about which there hangs a lesson-book flavor distaste- 
ful to the natural man. Moreover, in spite of Sundorne’s 
arrant contempt for popular favor, there were popular 
elements conspicuous in this as in all his compositions, of 
which picturesque dramatic situations and striking specta- 
cular effects formed an important part, enabling his de- 
tractors to ascribe any success obtained to these alone. 
And the story of the play, though the period was put back 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 119 

a century, appealed none the less directly to the modern 
sympathies of his audience. 

“ The tragedy,” said one dramatic critic the next morn- 
ing (he of the Daily Oracle), “ of a young monarch of 
strange but lovable qualities, an artist by disposition, by 
mischance of blood royal, conspired against by ambitious 
enemies, who find in his hatred of convention and freakish 
use of his kingship a plausible excuse for deposing him as 
a madman, and thus drive him to suicide.” 

“ The romance,” wrote a sister critic (she of the Ladies^ 
World), “ of a girl, Ottilia — charmingly played by Miss 
Norton — who adored the young king, whom a cruel dis- 
illusion in his earliest manhood had for ever turned away 
from seeking the enchantments of love. Her devotion 
triumphs over his misanthropy, but too late to avert his 
doom.” 

“ Here,” quoth the weekly Distructor, “ we have pre- 
sented afresh the ever-fascinating, insolvable problem of 
the ideal nature in hopeless discord with the lurid realities 
of life. A fatality, for one whose artificially high position 
as an earthly sovereign confers dominion intoxicating to 
the vivid and limitless imagination. One with actual 
power to turn the externals of life into a fairy-tale, but 
helpless as the lowest drudge to transform the spiritual 
meagreness and moral depravity of those around him. 
Rupert falls, directly through the machinations of the con- 
spirators, indirectly through his self-abandonment to 
dreams, and shrinking from the sordid cares, pleasures, 
and companionship that make up the staple of life, even to 
those born in the purple.” 

So much for Sundorne’s hero, a figure from whom every- 
body felt it would be impossible, for this generation at 
least, to dissociate the name of Carroll. A fascinating 
personage, — even to the vulgar, for his dazzling splendor, 
lavish liberality, and surroundings like a page out of the 
Arabian Nights — this monarch who is threatened with 
exchanging his empire over the minds and muscles of a 
nation for the indignity of enforced seclusion and restraint, 
no longer his own master, he who was yesterday the mas- 
ter of millions. 

“ Will he yield to the counsels of common sense ? ” 
wonders the representative of the Oracle — forego the fan- 


120 


FAMOUS OR ^FAMOUS, 


tastic festival which serves his antagonists as a pretext 
for inflaming the people against him as a squanderer of the 
public revenue ? “ Will he respond to Ottilia’s self-devo- 

tion ? ” ladies and lovers wonder. “ Will he find some 
means of making honorable peace with destiny ? ” philo- 
sophers ask themselves — the interest of all alike grown so 
acute as to dispute with that of recognizing their acquain- 
tance and taking stock of the social celebrities in the house. 
It reached its climax in the festival scene in the second 
act; when the magnificent spectacular display left no 
single looker-on unmoved. 

The music, the masque, appealed to the senses all men 
have in common — the enchantment enhanced by a previ- 
sion of the pending catastrophe — and the thin dividing line 
that separates King Rupert from one lower than the lowest 
of his subjects. The storm-cloud he has defied breaks, 
inciting him to fresh defiance ; and his haughty and violent 
action supply the instruments of his ruin. Traitors once 
admittedly the strongest, the prince stands deserted by 
time-serving courtiers and volatile populace alike ; the 
proudest of men becomes suddenly an object of pitying 
scorn to the vagabond in the street — a calamity worse than 
death, which is denied him. 

One last chance. Love will save him, if he will accept 
such salvation as it offers. He loves Ottilia, who at her 
life’s risk has contrived a plan of escape. If he will fly 
with her and consent to dwell for ever incognito in some 
distant land, none will molest him or trouble to declare 
him mad or sane. To reclaim his kingship is only to 
court fresh indignities, but as Damon and Chloe in some 
remote Arcadia, they two may wed, and forget royalty 
abdicated, its pleasures and pains. Devoutly every lady 
present hopes it will end so. The gallery, for all its demo- 
cratic faiths, would rather, in their heart of hearts, that 
the king stuck to his crown ; whilst you, the man of supe- 
rior understanding, feel that content is not for King Rupert, 
and that the deliverance of death, which he chooses and 
succeeds in grasping, alone can free him from unmerited 
shame. 

The curtain fell amid signs unmistakable to the ex- 
perienced playgoer of a remarkable success. Yet all the 
best merits of the play had passed unnoted by the audience ; 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


I2t 


the merits that distinguish work that will live from the 
ephemeral that at a first hearing may command an even 
greater furore. “It is by the beggarly elements that 
King Rupert succeeded, by the higher that it will endure,” 
was the silent verdict of Experience, that is, of Austin 
Day. For a fine work of art, like a fine work of nature, 
has as many different aspects as human sense has different 
moods in which to behold it. So often as you return to it, 
though you know it by heart, you find there a new face, 
and wonder why it never was there for you before. 

It was over, in three hours, what they had been three 
months working for. Marcia could hardly realize it ; all 
had gone so quickly. But there was Sundorne, respond- 
ing to the long-repeated calls of the audience, “ with more 
dignity,” thought Austin Day, “ than I should have ex- 
pected from him ;” his bearing as free from affected 
nonchalance as from affected humility. 

Now the visible triumph was over and he was back, 
shaking hands with Marcia and her demonstrative parent, 
the latter overflowing with happily-inspired congratula- 
tions, and thinking delightedly of the critique, already 
written, which would send all London to the New Isis 
Theatre box office the next morning. “ I knew it ! I 
knew it I” Marcia heard herself saying exaltedly, lifted out 
of her apparent calm by glad excitement. Sundorne 
looked at her ; something glistened in her eyes, like tears 
of joy, and his features underwent a singular transient 
softening. Did he feel her disinterested, unmixed sym- 
pathy more sympathetic than that of the others, that it was 
more warmly welcome than all ? not excepting the com- 
pliments of the august personage to whom he was next 
summoned to pay his respects, comporting himself, to 
Austin Day’s amazement, as unexceptionably as though he 
were used to royal interviews, like his escort. 

Again, in the green-room, where flattering looks and 
addresses beset him, his demeanor appeared to all present 
to have miraculously changed for the better. It was only 
their relation to him that had changed. The self-same airs, 
gestures, speeches, that had grated on them as arrogant 
and offensive an hour or two before, in a dubious candi- 
date for a first prize, turned becoming in the prizeholder. 
Marcia saw the necessity of devoting herself to Mainwar- 


122 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


ing, who, for his share in the undertaking, felt somehow 
entitled to share the literary honors of the night ; and more 
than half persuaded he had had a hand in the composition 
of King Rupert. To his mortified surprise he found him- 
self forgotten — a wall-flower, so to speak — whilst around 
Sundorne circulated actors, critics, fashionable habitues, 
with a lively sense of his f^uture importance — a well of 
influence, as adventurers flock to a newly-discovered 
petroleum spring. A whimsical invalid was not their 
game. He felt hurt by a sense of public ingratitude. 
Marcia obliterated it in ten minutes, She felt enthusiasti- 
cally grateful to him ; for, unlike Sundorne, she could not 
overlook or underrate material obstacles, or despise those 
who removed them. Mainwaring, who, in a huff, had 
determined to back out of returning to supper with the 
Blakes, as previously arranged, was now mournfully regret- 
ting that his going was out of the question, as he felt quite 
knocked up by the fatigue of the representation, at which 
he had insisted on assisting, to the secret dismay of his little 
wife, who knew it would entail a week’s real, and a month’s 
fancied, increased indisposition. 

Marcia sent him home in a soothed condition, personally 
not sorry to miss the incongruous element in their party — 
Sundorne, her husband, her father, Bertha and herself. 
Four months since Sundorne first sat at their board, a beg- 
gar. Even in Wilfrid’s sincere interest there had been a 
dash of graceful condescension, the pleasure of generosity 
to the deserving poor. For, however his fancy might 
exalt the poet, there stood the man, friendless, poor as a 
rat, an apparent failure, one to whom the smallest favors 
should be welcome — hard facts, which had insensibly 
colored Carroll’s sentiments towards him. Sundorne’s airs 
of superiority over the successful artist, the popular idol, 
eccentric then, not to say ludicrous, were vindicated now 
and for ever. What was the proudest triumph Carroll the 
player could possibly aspire to, compared with the kind of 
honor that belongs to the maker, the poet, once owned 
worthy of the name? And Wilfrid and Austin Day, true 
artists both, not only acknowledged Sundorne’s title from 
this night onward, but imagined they had done so from 
the very first. 

And the talk flowed, turning on the particulars of the 
representation, the wrinkles of one actor, the mannerisms 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


123 


of another — the incidental music and the masque — so much 
froth to work off the exhilaration ; an hour to detain, if it 
could be, foreboding that the hours to follow will not be 
like this. Marcia had been consciously happy that night ; 
with an intense, ideal, and absolutely unalloyed gladness ; 
the point where always cross-roads diverge, one of which 
has to be taken, and none of which leads to Paradise. 

Yes, this much-abused life has its moments of perfection. 
But they are absurdly brief. Bertha must not sit up all 
night and spoil her looks. Wilfrid had a heavy day’s work 
before him to-morrow, warning him to seek repose. Austin 
Day was seasoned to late habits, and had made sleep a 
convenient handmaid that would wait on him. He sat up 
into the small hours with Sundorne, who was always naive- 
ly surprised to see any one succumb to fatigue incurred by 
working in his behalf. They separated at last ; and Cecil 
Mainwaring was the sole person connected with the affair 
whom the excitement of it kept awake all night. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

JUBILEE. 

Just three months later London was stirred by an exciting 
incident beside which Sundorne’s day of jubilee shrinks 
into obscurity, though the present gala was of no more 
practical importance, and could leave no more trace be- 
hind, than the passage of a balloon through the air. 

But the state entry into the capital of an Oriental poten- 
tate created a brilliant and universal interest that made 
the whole world kin, classes and masses. Bread and the 
circus ! the needs of royalties and roughs are just the 
same ; and Socialist apostles have not yet begun to cure 
us of crowding to catch a glance of a despot, provided he 
has got his crown on. We want the externals of splen- 
dor, but the real treat is to our imagination, and lies in 
the power of which they are the emblem. And the 
despised mob is only the naked self-expression of human 
nature at large. Those who could afford fancy prices for 
windows overlooking the route of the procession paid 


124 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


them gladly. Fashion had given the word — ^great was the 
company of sight-seers. Here was no limited monarch, 
holding his sceptre on sufferance, a mere balance between 
the really governing forces ; but one who held the lives 
and deaths of millions of subjects in the hollow of his 
hand, who had cut off uncounted heads, rivalled Solomon 
in the number of his wives. Here was sensation to satisfy 
the needs of the most modern intelligence ; whilst to old- 
fashioned souls the thing had a solemn charm — as it were 
a living illustration of some page of the Old Testament. 
For many days nothing else was talked about, in the 
papers, in society, and in the streets of London. 

The Blakes were to view the pageant from the windows 
of the house of Lady Lyonesse, that generous friend to 
artists ; one who was so used to surround herself with 
notables of all sorts and conditions that she could not get 
on without them, no more than her late husband without 
his daily paper and his cli.b. She patronized the stage, 
and had a craze for Carroll, which, as she was sixty, she 
was at liberty to profess. 

No one cared less than Wilfrid to see the Great Mogul, 
but he was in a state very usual with him at the end of an 
arduous season, too tired to take rest, haunted by the pre- 
vision of work immediately ahead to which he felt unequal, 
afraid to relax for fear of breaking down, and snatching at 
distraction to drown or stave off the ills of over-exertion, 
as others do when suffering from inaction or ennui. 

Lady Lyonesse’s grand point was to get Sundorne to 
come ; and what that lady made a point of she generally 
ended by securing, being regardless, like all true women, 
of the means. He was notoriously chary of his presence 
at mixed gatherings. She felt as if her whole season would 
be a failure if it passed over without this new light — whom 
half the world, these last three months, had been extolling 
as a great master, the other half denouncing as a great 
impostor — having been seen under her roof ; a leader to 
whose partizans she belonged, if only by virtue of her Car- 
roll-worship. 

So she set upon him one night in Carroll’s box at the 
theatre, and left him no loophole of escape. The Blakes 
would bring him, she said. And with all London running 
after amusement, however frivolous, it would be of no use 
his attempting to go sternly about his work as usual. He 


FA MO c/s OF /SFAMOC^S. 


125 


would find the holiday humor of the majority had spite- 
fully reacted on his disdainful industry. So it came to 
pass that her assemblage of a hundred chosen people — 
young attaches, old parliamentary hands, fashionable 
beauties, dilettanti^ gay actresses, and learned historians — 
included the hermit of Shelsley. 

A novel experience for him, which, as Marcia noticed, 
embarrassed him no more than a rise or fall in the tem- 
perature. Those things which to most people make up 
the serious business of life were to Sundorne insignificant 
adjuncts. Costly furniture, rich dresses, an atmosphere of 
fashion, flirtation, intrigue, affected him as little as the 
livery of the footman. People stared at him, some tried 
to make or improve his acquaintance, criticized him in 
audible whispers ; he was not put out, only a little bored. 
Most of those present, with the pathetic ardor of genuine 
sightseers, had been waiting there two hours already. 
Marcia was thankful to Wilfrid’s inveterate unpunctuality 
for saving them an ordeal Sundorne would have found 
supremely tedious. Even now he would be unhappy, 
wedged in somewhere, unable to stretch his legs or move 
his arms ; invoking silent anathemas on Eastern despots 
and Western fine ladies. All the good places had been 
taken long ago. The hostess pretended to squeeze out 
just room enough for Carroll in the front, at her feet, a 
space she had been privately reserving for him from the 
first. As for Sundorne, now that he had shown himself, 
she would have been ready to let him do what he pleased, 
even to go. But she always managed her guests beauti- 
fully, and contrived to find two seats in the back row for 
him and Mrs. Blake, who would take care of him, as she 
begged her to do. 

Presently, the throng thickening, they two edged back 
their chairs perforce, to avoid the pressure, towards where 
the opening into the empty inner room afforded a little 
breathing space. They felt increasing indifference to the 
coming pageant, of which, where Lady Lyonesse had 
placed them, they could not possibly catch a glimpse. 
Meanwhile the stir of excitement, the buzz of conversation 
in front, went on merrily, like a chorus of crickets. 

“ Lady Lyonesse’s brocade — real old Japanese.” “ Oh, 
look at those ladies, climbing to the top of a hansom ! ” 
The crowd cheer. “ He is coming ! ” “ No, it’s only the 


126 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


water-carts.” (Whispers) “ Painted up to the eyes ! ” 
“Have you never seen Verena by daylight till now?” 

“ Lady Lyonesse will have her — shuts her eyes to 

There’s a good story of how she and the Bishop of Cro- 
chester met here by accident the other day. He looked 
askance at first, but went away completely won over. Do 
I object to meet her ? Well, yes, at a party ; but this sort 
of occasion is different.” 

Sundorne, oppressed by the stifling heat, the crush and 
din, was wondering what he came here for, and said so. 

“ It would have been no good working-day for you,” 
Marcia reminded him. “ The general fuss has unsettled 
the air. To-morrow it will all be forgotten, and London 
quiet down again.” 

“ I am persuaded I shall never be able to live in Lon- 
don,” said Sundorne gravely. 

To live, for him, meant to live under the most favorable 
conditions available for his work. Of existence on other 
lines he had, for himself, no conception, no more than of 
trying to live under water or under-ground. He con- 
tinued : 

“ There are too many men, too many minds thronging 
your own mind. It suffers as much discomfort and dam- 
age from the constant friction of miscellaneous intellects 
as would your body from the compression and elbowing of 
the crowd below in the street. I am always thinking of 
going back to Shelsley.” 

And never till now had he asked himself why he had 
chosen to stay. Mainly because in shaking off the worry- 
ing pressure he would also have to forego the sympathetic 
companionship. 

Why don’t you and Blake take a house in the country 
for six weeks’ r el ache he said. 

“ We are to spend them, as usual, in Switzerland, you 
know,” said Marcia impassively. 

She, too, wSuld fain have remained nearer home, she 
knew, now she must contemplate the imminent break in 
this almost daily intercourse with her present neighbor. 

“ Wilfrid’s only chance of recruiting is to get right away 
from the scene of his labors,” she continued. “ Until the 
Channel is between him and London, nothing serves.” 

And it was manifest that he had never so badly needed 
a holiday. Sundorne had known their plans all along, 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS, 


127 


but stubbornly refused to believe they would come off; 
and now that his friends were starting to-morrow he re- 
sented what he called their desertion. 

“ You will finish Francesca while we are away,” said 
Marcia. He had told her of his work in hand, incomplete 
to this hour. 

“ Who knows ? ” he said rather gloomily. 

“You,” she let fall with a playful intonation. “You 
have no doubt in your own mind.” 

“ By Heaven I think that I have ! ” he said abruptly 
and low. 

“ Then it is you who most of all need rest and a break. 
If you could take them might it not be better for Francesca 
and for you ? ” 

“ Aye, if I could,” he said musingly, thinking how his 
rest would be solitary confinement, and nothing more. 

He had served a life-long apprenticeship to that, and 
unlearned it all in a few months. 

Wilfrid’s holiday, that began to-morrow, would enable 
him to enjoy more freely, more keenly, the treasure of 
sympathy, the beneficent intelligence, of the woman beside 
his friend now ; the woman with the soft voice, the calm 
presence, and mind like a fortunate star ; whose gentleness 
was not weakness, but strength and depth of feeling and 
unselfish purpose ; a personality to which his own clung, 
not as yet for support, but as to something to absorb, to 
nourish itself with ; something he claimed imperiously as 
part and parcel of his new and fuller existence. A talis- 
man denied to him, Sundorne, and vouchsafed to another; 
his talented, impressionable, fascinating friend yonder, 
with the provocative eyes of the fair Verena and the .wor- 
shiping gaze of old Lady Lyonesse upon him. Jealousy 
of Wilfrid’s better fortune provoked in Sundorne no anti- 
pathy or depreciation. He had the fullest sense of Mar- 
cia’s husband’s abilities, now they were enlisted in his 
service, 

“ I shall miss you,” he said presently. 

The simple words were simply and gravely spoken, yet 
they troubled her. Her eyes fled from his ; fixed on a 
picture on the wall near her. Lady Lyonesse’s last acquired 
old master, a Dutch interior, which perhaps at another 
time she might have admired. Mechanically she studied 


128 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


it, and it imprinted itself on her mind, in its careful and 
homely detail, as a supremely ugly and ridiculous object. 

“ I want the hands, the heads, the hearts of my friends 
round me,” Sundorne was saying, simply as ever, but not 
so as to remove the disturbing impression. Some wild 
fierce thing seemed to struggle for life and liberty in her 
heart when he spoke thus ; something to be held down, at 
any cost, and strangled. Marcia’s eyes never left the 
picture. 

The mosaic of the pavement, the broken clay pipe on 
the floor, the dumpy man smoking, the plain girl drinking 
beer, the cards — you could distinguish the suit of clubs — 
was it a faithful transcript of human life or a hideous car- 
icature } Marcia never forgot that picture. 

And the company around, their impatience sharpened 
by long and weary waiting and false alarms, had fallen 
back on jests and flirtations. Still the Great Mogul tarried, 
and they had begun to despair of him altogether, but a 
diplomatist present reminded them that punctuality is an 
exclusively Western superstition. 

Then suddenly, when no one was looking out, came a 
sort of distant roar j and an indescribable vibration spread- 
ing through the crowd proclaimed that the yearned-for 
moment was at hand. 

The signal for a scene of frenetical excitement ; ladies 
straining to see ; no eyes, no ears, no sense except for 
what was passing in the street. 

Marcia’s and Sundorne’s supine incuriosity had been 
turned to profit by their neighbors, who, standing up on 
their chairs, made a high living wall in front of them. She 
and he were cut off, of a sudden alone together in the pre- 
sence of a hundred souls. Marcia had risen involuntarily, 
but showed no desire to mount on her chair. They two 
stood back, in the portiere, with the Dutch topers looking 
down on them. 

The cheers in the street, the trumpets, the shouts and 
eager exclamations that filled the air, Marcia heard without 
the least consciousness of what they meant. 

“ The world has never gone well with me until the last 
few months,” said Sundorne’s voice at her side emphati- 
cally. 

“Yes,” she murmured inaudibly, telling herself, “It is 
his success, which has changed his old position to one of 


FAMOUS OR LY FA MO US. 


129 


honor and influence.” He, passing that by just now, was 
thinking of something else found ; something which, found 
earlier, would have mitigated the struggle as certainly as 
it smoothed the higher ground where now he stood, and 
might clear for him that upward path he must mount, or 
decline. 

“It is a beginning,” he resumed. But, what? Its 
worth depends on the answer.” 

Marcia’s countenance was unusually agitated. Sundorne, 
who had perforce lived chiefly by the head, on ideas, and 
starved his senses, and who knew nothing of sentiment, 
was possessed by a new and human admiration sprung up 
as it were full grown towards this fair fellow-creature. A 
mad cry throbbed in him that they two could be caught out 
of this world into another — no matter which — he. and she, 
sinking the rest. 

“ The future is yours,” said Marcia, and her voice 
faltered, “ the near future, as indisputably as the far dis- 
tant.” 

“ I am not sure,” he said. 

At the first draught of success he had felt like a giant 
refreshed. Now, despising what was done and what was 
won, he still saw the purpose of his life unattained, afar, 
and constantly receding. For artist careers, the highest, 
are ever like aerial navigators., the sport of fatal hazards. 

Now the room was in an uproar; such cheering, waving 
of hands and handkerchiefs ; for the great Mogul and pro- 
cession were passing beneath the window ; an ineffable 
three minutes of wild competition among the spectators 
to snatch as many impressions, personal, sartorial, and 
general, as possibility allowed. Marcia and Sundorne were 
as unnoticeable as though they wore fairy helmets of invi- 
sibility. 

“ You are jesting,” she said low. 

“ Ah, that I were ! ” replied Sundorne quickly, his rather 
rugged countenance changing and changing as he spoke. 
“ I shall not feel sure of myself, even, when you are away.” 

“ I ? ” Marcia’s voice rang with exultant surprise. 

“You.” His restrained tone was belied even more and 
more by his restless and fiery look. “The world is hell — life, 
I mean. I have come to forget it — been drawn out of it for 
a day and a night. I feel as if I should ascend into the 
arena again — to be torn to pieces.” 

9 


130 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


“No, no,” whispered Marcia. “The battle is to' the 
strong.” 

“ Aye,” said he, “ but the victory, though I am bound 
to win it, may yet be worse than a defeat.” 

“What can I do,” said Marcia inaudibly, “to alter 
that ? ” 

“You have done,” he returned, “ more than any other.” 

His voice, his face were agitated, fast and low the words 
followed : 

“ I said I needed my friends — I meant you — your hand, 
your head, your heart, to wait on mine.” 

It passed like a gust of wind over her soul, that bent 
like a reed : his wild words, fiery glance, and grasp of 
hand ; for they were alone, and he did not know what he 
was doing. 

The Great Mogul’s transit was over. The condensed 
mass of guests expanded, and Marcia and Sundorne were 
absorbed in a chattering crowd. She must mix in the 
conversation, and answer condolences on having enjoyed 
such an indifferent view of the procession. Sundorne 
turned his back on the whole concern, and walked home 
to his lodgings. The eager multitude thronging the streets 
looked to hi]n like swarms of madmen. 

The Blakes only got away in time for Wilfrid to reach 
the theatre for the night’s performance of King Rupert. 
Marcia had not a moment for thinking. There were a 
thousand matters claiming her attention — the arrangements 
for the journey, for the children’s visit to Surrey Lodge, 
for the house in their absence, for Wilfrid’s health and 
comfort. Nothing must be forgotten, and nothing was. 
If her heart was not in this pleasure trip she put her hand 
to the plough the more diligently — strength of habit 
serving her so far — and if she looked back it was not till 
she and her husband were seated in the night mail, en route 
for the Engadine, their abiding place till the end of the 
summer. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


13* 


CHAPTER IX. 

IN THE GARDEN. 

In vain you plan out some coming stretch of your life, 
like the route of a holiday trip. Your maps will cheat 
you. You equip yourself for cool mountain solitudes and 
find burning plains and cities instead. You start for where 
Eden lies, to find yourself in Siberia. 

The Blakes were settled at Pontresina. Sundorne had 
sentenced himself to a month’s hard labor at his Shelsley 
hermitage, leaving no address in London. He proposed 
to finish Francesca in a few days, and devote the next 
weeks to compositions of more account, as uncreated 
things always seem to the creators. He was mobbed now, 
he considered, in any frequented place ; bothered by 
pressmen, beggars, stage-struck aspirants. Town is never 
empty of bores. At the hermitage he could be quiet as 
the grave, he knew of old. The Mainwarings, his only 
local acquaintance, were at the seaside. 

He soon found he had miscalculated. He had tasted 
companionship, and solitude would have none of her faith- 
less servant. The root, too successfully transplanted, 
would not take kindly again to the old soil. Write Fran- 
cesca ? He wondered how he had escaped utter mental 
decrepitude in the days gone by. 

In that bald dull dwelling, amid meagre surroundings, 
his intellect and fancy lay benumbed. He had money, and 
might have turned his den into a Chinese emperor’s toy ; 
but that was not it. He sickened for want of the genial 
home atmosphere, the stimulating sense of life and spirit- 
ual harmony, for human fellowship, and the filling up of 
those vacant hours that compose so material a portion of 
even the greatest man’s existence. His brain worked ill ; 
inspiration was dumb ; judgment nowhere. Then irate, he 
strove to banish Marcia’s distracting image, and as surely 
as he succeeded found that away with it went all the 
lingering elation of his mood. He seemed turning to a 


132 


FAMOUS OR infamous. 


dullard and slug. It was deadly to feel the old depression 
stealing over energies so wonderfully vitalized by late 
events. 

He abandoned the struggle, quitted the hermitage for 
ever, and came to reinstate himself in his London lodgings. 
He felt half cured already. The past had left its stamp 
here, though the personages were gone from the scene ; 
and the magic of association brought back the old content. 
The Blakes, hearing of his return, wrote desiring him, as 
a matter of course, to make any use that he liked of their 
house and garden. 

Sundorne wandered one morning into the summer- 
house ; the next, he brought over his books and writing- 
things ; and every day found him there returning, like a 
bird to some sun-lit pool. The season was bright and 
fresh ; you could almost fancy it was spring again. 

His slumbering spirit and its angels revived ; and not an 
hour but left behind it its golden legacy of thought. He 
kept his whereabouts a secret and shunned society, but 
lived in the afterglow of an absent human influence, which 
penetrated and vivified him as though its source were 
near. 

Yet, without Marcia,' how strange and dead the house 
seemed, that was like the house Beautiful to him. Some- 
times he found himself looking involuntarily for her figure 
on the stairs or at the drawing-room window, where she 
often sat teaching or playing with her children, or, more 
welcome — she little knew how he had watched for it — 
treading the garden-walk towards the summer-house. His 
vivid imagination made of it a material pleasure to recall 
that incarnation of womanly dignity and grace. How, in 
moments of weariness and disgust, he used to wait for her 
impatiently, and she seemed to know, and respond with- 
out a summons. Here she would sit for a few minutes, 
or pace the garden-walk with him, whilst he talked of 
what was fermenting in his mind ; a respite, leaving him 
as though he had tasted a cordial, sweetly, magically 
restored. 

Never more. He had forfeited those mild and innocent 
blessings in that hour when, drawn closer together by their 
joint estrangement from the crowd that thronged them, he 
had revealed to her his perfect regard, and surprised her 
joy at the revelation. 


FAMOl/S OR JMFAMOC/S. 133 

After that, no going back, no standing still. What 
then ? Separation ? 

Sundorne had lived till past middle age with a great gap 
in his existence, and might have gone down to the grave, 
as do thousands, enduring the deprivation. But the gap 
had been much too well filled awhile ; his new life would 
not bear such mutilation ; his career as Sundorne the 
successful, followed, flattered — mainly insipid honors these, 
after all, for one who has drained the cup of wormwood. 

The future, the future ! But utterly to sever himself 
from Marcia would be to go back to the old life of pain 
and Vvant and strenuous longing. His whole man rose up 
in rebellion against that mandate. 

It was afternoon on the day when the Blakes were 
expected home from abroad. Sundorne had spent it in 
their garden. It broke on him like a day of bitter farewell, 
not of greeting ; a tormenting regret and unrest fevered 
his thoughts like a bodily wound. 

He finished his work, but could not judge it. Strange 
thoughts, phrases, and similes had come to him, of which 
he was. not sure whether they might not read like words of 
madness to others, or to himself to-morrow. 

Anb when at sundown he laid down his pen, a morbid 
dread smote him that his powers were beginning to play 
him false ; and all he had done seemed so unimportant, 
compared with what he aspired to do. 

His life was a prison still, with blank corridors, mono- 
tonous cells, dreary exercise-ground and workrooms, 
whose restrictions and discomforts sapped his energies. 
A gate bursts open in the gloom, and discloses an en- 
chanted, moonlit land of promise, beyond the pale. 

Oh, that they two had met earlier, before she assumed 
those life-duties, life-ties that prevented him from claiming 
her as his handmaid. Yet he felt at the bottom of his 
heart that that would have altered nothing. Had Marcia, 
the young and inexperienced maiden, crossed his path, he 
would not have looked at her ; and if he had, might never 
there have recognized his mate. It was Marcia as he had 
known her that he needed, with her gifts of person and 
mind matured and developed, and with other, greater 
possibilities latent in her, which her mercurial partner 
would never arouse — a Marcia whose very existence in 
herself she might never have surmised had she never met 
him, Sundorne. 


134 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


He had given his imagination the rein ; his pulse, his 
brain were disturbed, and the sight at this moment of a 
tall female form gliding out of the house and up the lawn 
towards him gave him a nervous shock, a half-sense of 
hallucination. Something clouded his eyes ; only when 
the phantom had come close up to the open door of the 
summer-house did he perceive that it was Bertha Norton. 
Her brief holiday, poor child, had been spent in striving 
to remedy the irremediable troubles of a thriftless home. 

Bertha had lost all her old shrinking from the Erl King. 
She noticed, as she came in, how his hand trembled, his 
startled yet absent look ; and feared she had disturbed 
him at his writing. 

“ The children have just come back,” she said, “ and I 
looked in to see them, as Marcia asked me, and to j^ut 
things in order. This is your domain. But Marcia must 
not say you have been neglected in her absence. I have 
brought you fresh ink.” 

His continued silence further assured her that her in- 
trusion was ill-timed, but the mischief was now done ; to 
beat a precipitate retreat would merely aggravate it. So 
she quietly replenished the ink-bottle and removed some 
waste papers that encumbered the ground. 

“ You were working? ” she said. 

No.” He seemed hardly conscious of her presence, 
as she finished her tidying. Then she took out her watch, 
saying : 

They may be here at any moment.” 

Did any one ever look at her with such scared eyes, at 
so simple an observation ? 

“ They ? ” he repeated. “ Who ? ” 

“ Wilfrid and Marcia. Their train arrives at six. It is 
nearly seven.” 

“ So late ! ” he ejaculated, rising abruptly. “ Where 
have I been, these two hours ? ” 

Where, indeed ! Bertha had never seen him so troubled 
and distraught. He was going. 

“Won't you stay just to welcome them?” she asked 
gently. 

“ I am not well,” he said ; “ tired with sitting here. You 
will excuse me to the travellers.” 

Perplexed, she saw him depart, with what she and 
Marcia called his “ Erl King look ” on. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


135 


“ How he must hate me for interrupting him,” she be- 
thought her. “ Perhaps I have deprived the world of 
some valuable thought or beautiful metaphor. I am very 
sorry, but had no idea he was on the premises at all.” 

He had escaped from them but just in time. Five 
minutes later the absentees drove up. 

When the bustle of arrival was over, and children, ser- 
vants, and Bertha, had received their due meed of atten- 
tion, Marcia found herself involuntarily looking round, as 
for something missed, an expected presence. But it was 
Wilfrid who presently asked, “And what has become of 
our tenant-at-will ? Pray where and how is Sundorne ? ” 

“ He was writing in the summer-house,” said Bertha, 
“ until just now, when he left in a hurry. He was in one 
of his queer moods, and up in the clouds.” 

“ After dinner I shall go round and fetch nim across,” 
said Wilfrid. 

“ No, please,” said Marcia quickly, who felt unreason- 
ably vexed and hurt not to see him there of his own accord. 
“ If he wants to see us he will come. Better leave him to 
his own devices.” 

And when, next morning, Wilfrid had to seek him on 
some business errand, Marcia opposed his suggestion of 
asking him to lunch, alleging some household pretext. 
The invitation was given all the same, but declined, be- 
cause the invited one perceived that it had not come from 
her. 

Sundorne felt perversely driven to fly the house whilst 
she was there, and seek it the instant she departed, as 
though to dally with some token of her presence whilst 
shunning that presence itself. He had left some papers 
he wanted in the summer-house, and watched the road 
from his own window, waiting to see her go out, before 
returning to fetch them. 

It mocked him to find himself, Sundorne, hanging back 
like a schoolboy, irresolute, harassed, hampered by trivial 
outside considerations. She whom he thirsted to see had 
been very near him for twenty-four hours and they had not 
met. His doing ! 

At seven that evening he saw his friends step into the 
brougham and drive off to the theatre, where Wilfrid’s 
work began again to-night. 

Safe, now. Sundorne went out, rang at the door, and 
told the servant he came to fetch his things from the 


136 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


summer-house. And would he also find his lost serenity 
lying about somewhere in his garden retreat ? He lingered, 
as though in quest. 

It was dusk. They would not be back before mid- 
night. He might pace the turf and muse himself weary, 
undisturbed. The servants had their old orders about 
him. They brought him coffee to the summer-house, and 
the lamp to light when he would, then left him alone. 

The suburban street grew quieter ; the distant town 
settling down into its evening calm, as the flow of business 
stops. The fresh sweet voices of Marcia’s young children 
sounded through the open nursery windows, then these 
were shut, the house-blinds drawn, and all within was 
silent ; the passing footsteps on the pavement grew scarcer. 
It was dark, but Sundorne, seated now in the summer- 
house, lit not his lamp, abandoning himself to his reverie 
awhile. The church-chimes tolled half-past nine o’clock. 
At ten he would depart. 

But for that half-hour he let all the force of thought and 
imagination that was in him concentrate itself on that one 
idea of a woman’s existence — Marcia. Most things men 
care to claim were within his reach to-day. Wealth, as 
compared with the penury he had endured : columns of 
printed praise, private flattery, and invitations to dinner, 
d'hey afforded him no satisfaction ; or rather the whole 
fabric of advantage seemed incomplete, as virtually non- 
existent, as an arch without the keystone. 

The largest part of his life was spent, and the guerdon of 
life now tardily revealed to him, with its grim alternative. 
A youth who tears himself away from temptation knows, 
though he may not own it, that the path before him will 
offer his fancy abundance of fair things for the one he relin- 
quishes. For Sundorne the choice presented itself as 
between dawn and night without a morrow ; manna and 
fiimine to the end ; the possession of the highest human 
bliss, or perpetual exclusion from the taste or the glimpse 
of it. 

The strain of thought intensified the characteristic ex- 
pression of his face. The firm lips became hard ; the de- 
termined chin defiant ; the reckless eyes insensate in their 
daring. The tremendous egotism of his nature partly 
inclined him to revel covertly in treading down all that 
stood in his way, laws human, laws divine, as if he were no 
subject of theirs. 


FAMOUS OR IMFAMOUS, 


137 


The distant roll of wheels broke on the silence ; it came 
nearer, then ceased suddenly, behind the house, followed 
by the faint click of a latch-key in the front door. Sun- 
dorne did not stir. From the window of his shelter he 
could just discern the light-colored blinds in the casement 
of the drawing-room opposite. Somebody raised one, and 
stood there indistinguishable, looking out into the gloom. It 
was Marcia. To Sundorne’s excited fancy it seemed as 
though the superhuman power of his will had brought her. 

The summer-house was pitch dark ; she would never 
guess that he was near. If he chooses, he may sit still, wait 
till she has gone, then depart by the gate into the road, — • 
and she will never know. 

Shrink away like a dupe and a faint heart, afraid of the 
fulfilment of his own mighty desire? Retreat from the 
field already won ? Withdraw his hand when the fruit of 
what is to him the tree of life is ready to drop into his 
hand ? — he, whom the world’s curses cannot daunt, no more 
than its blessings can corrupt him. If they could, he would 
have been rotting in the grave broken-hearted years ago, 
or rusted in inaction. His beloved is there, and he vacillates 
— dares not, dares not, let her approach him. 

Marcia, standing by the pane, saw of a sudden a light 
flash in the dark ; a lamp kindled and placed in the lattice 
of the summer-house ; she let fall the blind. 

There was a moment, as though she hesitated — long 
enough for a deadly, cold, numbing fear to strike him, like 
paralysis. She had understood the signal ; but she will 
not come. That is her answer, and she is not his. 

No ; a figure appears at the garden door, and advances 
softly and lightly up the path towards him — as no other 
woman walks — her ivory white dress just grazing the grass- 
edged gravel. Over her shoulder trailed a soft light Indian 
shawl of the palest pink like the lining of a shell. For stress 
of joy Sundorne’s heart seemed to stand still ; his head 
swam. 

The door of the summer-house was wide open, and 
Marcia, approaching, saw him within, leaning on one hand, 
listening, expectant ; an attitude and expression habitual 
with him when rapt in thought or fancy. She had often 
seen him thus ; she sees him thus now — in her dreams. 


138 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


Motionless, he might have been a carved figure on a 
tomb, but for his eyes, that glowed with restless fire as 
they fixed on the form in the doorway. 

“ Returned,” he said, with a significance she tried to 
shun. 

“ 1 — I was tired — I came away — I had not thought of 
this,” said Marcia agitatedly, but truly. It was restlessness, 
however, rather than fatigue that had driven her from the 
theatre. Seeing the performance going smoothly, she had 
left after the first act, pleading yesterday’s long journey in 
excuse. 

She had come home early, and found the recluse had 
wandered in. Yet his most natural and undesigned en- 
counter smote them both with a sense of mutual, secret, 
guilty understanding. For their minds had rushed back to 
their last meeting — that gala day — all between was naught ; 
as they parted then, they met to-night. 

Marcia at the door, pale, grave, and beautiful, came no 
nearer, and Sundorne, dwelling intently on the lines of the 
face and the form that he loved, saw the angel of life stand- 
ing there on the threshold, doubting ; and felt that if she 
turned and went. Death, whose shadow was behind, would 
enter in her stead. 

“ And how is Sundorne ? ” she asked, terribly con- 
strained. 

Sundorne was mute, fallen into a trance, his mind seemed 
to wander, and a voice passed, singing the wild words of 
a Greek song : 

“ White bird, bird of my heart, 

Strange lands shall have joy of thee. 

Whilst I drink the poison of thine absence.” 

She was turning from him ; that recalled him to his senses, 
and like the startled life-saving movement of one in mortal 
peril his protest came. 

“ Nay — you have been away so long ! ” 

“ A month ! ” she murmured, in a smothered voice. 

“ An eternity of torment,” he said. “ I can bear much, 
Marcia, but not your absence. That has put me to the 
proof.” 

“ Did you miss me ? ” she cried, out of the abundance 
of her heart’s gladness. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


139 


Should I miss the sight from my eyes, the power from 
my limbs, the life from my soul ? ” he answered lingeringly. 

“ I shall be there now,” she said, troubled as by the 
mockery of the effort to avert the true sense of her terrible 
situation ; as though they could put themselves back half 
a year, he satisfied to have her for his occasional friendly 
listener, applying her scant leisure to soothe his hours of 
tribulation. 

“ Never again as in the other days,” he said. 

His gaze drew her eyes to his, and her cheek was aflame 
at his scrutiny, his challenge. 

“ IMarcia,” he said, and her name had an enchanting 
sound as it passed his lips. A breeze stirred in the labur- 
num tops ; and Marcia’s heart was shaken likewise, “ as 
the trees of the wood are moved by the wind.” What were 
they doing in the theatre now ? the thought crossed her 
oddly. Men and women shouting themselves hoarse, apeing 
passion and agony and desire and death — a grotesque farce 
— to an audience enraptured, the fools ! by their puppets’ 
play. 

Out here in the dusk and the cool, she and he, face to 
face, here was the real drama ! She felt dizzy and faint with 
the joy and the pain of it. 

“ Sit here, Marcia,” he said, with a softening of his tone 
as unexpected as the gushing-out of water-springs from the 
rock, and ‘moving her as strangely. She sank down on 
the bench, with clasped hands. 

On that day, six weeks ago, when he had spoken, Marcia 
had felt as if he had shown her some wizard’s crystal, in 
which the gazer’s eye may see strange worlds and many 
wonders. To-night she trod that undiscovered country, and 
knew it in no wise chimerical. It was the land left behind, 
half forsaken already, that was becoming blank and unsub- 
stantial to view. Her life with Wilfrid, what was it } She 
only knew. Like a mere narrow room, of which you know 
by heart the dimensions, bounds, and innermost recesses. 
Something that may give you fresh and infinite trouble, to 
keep the skeletons quiet in their cupboards, the squalid 
shapes away, but which can offer you no fresh hopes. An 
unowned, buried conviction that had started up like a 
traitor lurking in herself. 

“ Marcia,” he said intently, taking her hand between his, 
where it lay unresistingly, “ you are my bond of life.” 


140 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


‘‘ I,” she repeated imploringly. “ Sundorne, oh, be 
silent ! ” 

“ You jest, Marcia,” he said. Keep that star from 
falling ” — a meteor shot across the sky — “ but not this truth 
from my lips. Hear it again. You are my bond of life.” 

“ Ah, have mercy ! ” she sobbed sincerely j and yet 
there was no heart in that prayer. Sundorne might hear 
there the cry of a soul already lost. He resumed : 

“ Would you have me rank you with others .? 1 cannot. 

You have, or should have, a life and a mind apart, as have 
I. Listen. I was more alone than an alien or an outcast 
when chance brought me to your dwelling ; a stranger who 
in meeting you met the friend, the mate, from which his 
heart had been severed.” 

“ Too late,” she faltered. 

“ Who says so ? ” he returned, with passionate derision. 
“ It shall not be — it is not — if we will but say so.” 

“ Did I miss you, XhdX year that you were away ? Ah, 
Marcia, all the years of my life I have missed you. I 
have found what was mine from the beginning. You can- 
not, I cannot, break tlie spell of that.” 

The spell that was transforming her vision, quelling 
minor sentiments, creating new springs of action, baffling 
to the old. 

“ Mine, not his,” Sundorne went on with rapid insis- 
tance. “ Mine before you were his. I claim you as mine 
own, what has been withheld from me till this hour.” 

Marcia reclined against the woodwork for support, 
pressing her hands to her face. Sundorne spoke again 
more quietly, perhaps more confident of victory now ; his 
prize lay there in his hand, that might close over it when 
it would. 

“ Until I met you, my life was incomplete. Had we 
not met it must have ended so ; but I see now that all 
that went before was to lead up to this. I will not speak 
of your life — though I know it. Your past happiness, that 
I have destroyed ” 

“ No — hush ! ” moaned Marcia hurriedly, with a shiver. 
You can bring yourself to slay your guest asleep, but not 
to go back and contemplate your deed. 

“I can never live again,” he said, “as I have lived. 
You are a woman, and your heart' is full of pity for those 
who suffer. Have you no pity for me, Marcia.? I have 
suffered more ” 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS, 


I4I 

She had power to heal his wounds, as she knew ; and 
must choose between this and inflicting another, mortal to 
that dreamt-of deliverance. 

People called him hard and cold ; people who grow 
pathetic over the evanescent, visionary love-troubles of 
girls and boys, blown about by every gust of fancy — a 
sport, a game, won or lost — the signal to begin another. 
The unspent energies' of his powerful nature, at once 
passionate and constant, had all rushed into this fierce 
affection, and spoke in his appeal. 

A great magician, compelling her to serve him, casting 
a life-infatuation over her woman’s soul. 

“ A fate, a curse, hung over my path. It lifted the first 
time I looked into your eyes, and then the great sun rose. 
Marcia, it was our love.” 

Still she kept her face hidden, but her form trembled, 
and he knew that her eyes were wet. 

“ Tears, Marcia ? ” he said, almost tenderly. 

Taking her hands from her face, she showed it him 
transfigured to his sight by the glow of responsive passion. 
With keen delight he locked her in his arms. His fire 
from heaven he will have, though he needs must steal it. ' 
A rebel, it seems even fit that should be so. 

The next moment she released herself, and went swiftly 
from him, without a word, away into the house ; and the 
door was shut. 

Sundorne had thrown himself back in his chair, exultant, 
but seemingJy calm again ; an unrepentant Prometheus. 
He had never felt his, spirit so clear, his frame so light. 
Fear, doubt, dejection, will visit him no more. 

Presently he rose, extinguished the lamp, went out, and 
sought his own roof. 


142 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


CHAPTER X. 

A DRAMATIC READING. 

Some weeks later a select few met together by special 
invitation in Carroll’s drawing-room, to hear Sundorne 
read his new play Francesca da Rimini^ which was very 
shortly to be presented to the public. Quite by accident 
Dr. Robert Blake was one of the party. 

He had arrived only that morning from Scotland, after 
a brief bachelor holiday. Professionally engrossed during 
the previous season, he had scarcely seen his brother since 
Easter. Chancing to run across him in the street, Wilfrid 
asked him to look in that evening ; and he came, at the 
cost of a tiff with his wife, thus defrauded of some of his 
rare leisure moments. After ten o’clock to-morrow, she 
• knew, he would belong to his patients. 

His first look, as he joined the circle at his brother’s 
house, was for Bertha. Instinctively his eyes sought his 
old love. Not but what he had speedily and entirely got 
over that. To continue to sentimentalize over a girl who 
wouldn’t have him was, for Robert Blake, as out of the 
question as to go baying to the moon like a dog. He had 
married another, years ago now, and was well satisfied 
with his domestic lot. But the faint grain of romance 
that sometimes runs through, and spiritualizes what it 
touches, in even the most matter-of-fact natures had so 
ordered it that for Robert Blake the name of Bertha Nor- 
ton will never be quite as other names, her face as other 
faces ; so long, at least, as she remains fairly young and 
pretty. 

If changed at all in appearance, it was only to her ad- 
vantage. Good friends had smoothed her professional 
path for her, and her unselfish disposition had preserved 
her from those evil passions that age and disfigure more 
quickly than years or toil. To this day Dr. Blake might 
continue to see in her the real Una ; one moving in a mere- 
tricious sphere, but not of it. How came she still to be 
unmarried? he had wondered again and again. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


143 


For he had never guessed her innocent secret ; that 
imaginative predilection, that Wilfrid Carroll-worship, 
which, although she had taken no vow of single blessed- 
ness, nay, would have been totally dismayed had some 
oracle announced to her that she would die unmarried, 
had yet hindered, so far, the rise of any other attachment. 
Other men were doomed to suffer by comparison with 
Wilfrid, wTiom her captive fancy persistently idealized to 
this hour. 

Sensible Dr. Blake and she were good friends ; and 
their intercourse was easy and familiar, as between blood 
relations. But their unowned bond of union in these days 
was nothing more nor less than their mutual attachment to 
Robert’s brother, and unselfish interest in his welfare. 

“ And their friendship for Marcia,” Bertha would have 
added. But Dr. Blake, though he had the very highest 
opinion of Wilfrid’s wife, did not like her in his heart of 
hearts. He was afraid of her, too ; conscious that he did 
not understand her ; he recognized and was jealous of her 
superior cleverness. 

He had arrived too early. Marcia was not in the room. 
Standing by his brother, the doctor commented profession- 
ally on his appearance. 

“ You don’t look so fresh as I had hoped to see you 
after your run to the Engadine,” he remarked. 

“ Holidays are a mistake,” said Wilfrid languidly. 
“Too much business gets into arrear. You come back to 
a day of reckoning that soon makes away with any fresh 
vigor you may have been able to pick up.” 

Dr. Blake, ill-satisfied, gave him a short searching 
glance — a doctor’s diagnosis. What was amiss ? Wilfrid 
had no more idea than the inquirer. That, after all these 
years, it should suddenly appear that the nervous strain 
and worries of his profession were more than his system 
could stand, was too preposterous-seeming a supposition 
to entertain for a moment. But they had been telling 
upon him in novel and unaccountably awkward ways since 
he took up his work again, a while ago. He looked hag- 
gard-to-night, like some victim of black magic, the con- 
suming taper or vampire of romance. Had Dr. Blake not 
known his brother’s constitution to be sound in the main, 
he would have said some insidious disease was draining 
the life out of him. 


144 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


“ Children well ? ” asked Robert, looking about the room 
as if he expected to pick up a clue to this disturbing 
riddle. 

“Very well,” said Wilfrid indifferently. 

“ And Marcia? ” 

“ Here she comes to answer for herself.” 

“ I need not ask after you,” was his spontaneous com- 
pliment to her appearance, as they shook hands; Wilfrid’s 
wife was in excellent looks to-night, whoever else was 
not. 

“ I am always well,” said Marcia, laughing rather con- 
strainedly. Wilfrid had forgotten to mention to her that 
his brother was coming, and Marcia was vexed with her- 
self for wishing him away. She, who fearlessly met the 
gaze of a dozen sharper, acuter observers, felt suddenly ill 
at ease in the presence of this blunt, common-place bro- 
ther-in-law of no account. 

He did not heed her uncordial greeting. Absence quickly 
estranges those whose intimacy is not based on the least 
affinity. But that obstinate impression, of something 
wrong with this Eden, still bothered him like a stone in 
his shoe. And he had counted on Marcia’s appearance 
for obliterating it. Perhaps it was only his own awkward- 
ness reflected that he saw, making him fancy his company, 
not he, were ill at ease. 

Other guests now began arriving, literary and theatrical 
folk with whom Dr. Blake never knew how to talk. He 
seated himself near Bertha and presently asked her aside : 

“ What has knocked him up like this ? He’s the color 
of parchment to-night — looks worse than when he went 
away.” 

“ He has had rehearsals every day since he returned, 
besides the evening performance. Rietizi has not proved 
the success that was expected, and so they are already 
getting up something else — it is very fatiguing. And there 
has been a stupid misunderstanding to annoy him ; a 
crazy subordinate threatening to sue him for wrongful 
dismissal.” 

“ Can’t Marcia ” began Dr. Robert, and stopped 

short. How indeed express in reasonable-sounding terms 
his irrational idea that she could do anything she liked ? 
Bertha chimed in ; 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


*45 


“ Since they came home Marcia has been so busy, too ; 
she has undertaken to translate some Spanish for Sun- 
dorne ; and he is so frightfully particular.” 

“ Where is the poet ” asked the doctor, with a pros- 
pective half-yawn that amused the young lady. 

“ In the dining-room, or the garden. He will come in 
now that they are all here. He hates to be distracted by 
general conversation when he is going to read. Did you 
never hear him ? He has no real skill that way, I suppose, 
for he can only read his own compositions. But it is a 
fine thing, as you will see. Here he comes.” 

The door was thrown open as she spoke, and Sundorne 
walked in. Everybody rose, as though at a royal entry, 
and, what was stranger, it did not occur to anybody, not 
even, at the moment, to Robert Blake, that they were 
doing an odd thing. 

“ What a magnificent head he has ! ” the doctor was 
thinking, phrenologically. “ A child could tell at once 
that there was extraordinary power there.” (Many prophets 
and wise men had seen no such thing until his recent ele- 
vation to fame.) “ If he were in the least less remarkable, 
how utterly ridiculous all this fuss would be.” 

Sundorne very slightly acknowledged the respectful 
salutation of the assembly, as he straightway seated himself 
in the chair Marcia had placed for him, where the light, 
properly arranged near and cunningly shaded, fell on the 
pages in his hand. He did not look ill or overworked — 
ten years younger, people said, than when he first entered 
that house, not a twelvemonth ago — superb in liberated 
pride and undisputed dominion. Without apologetic 
preamble of any sort he began to read. 

Dr. Blake, listening dutifully, was, or fancied himself, 
duly struck and interested in the drama ; but ridden the 
while by that unpleasant sensation, like the disagreeable 
surprise, when you split open your peach, of finding a 
worm inside. 

Certainly Sundorne read very imperfectly, unpracticed in 
elocution or declamation. But his whole self was in the 
matter put forth, and his self-expression so eager and direct 
that some electric current seemed to flow from him through 
his audience, hurrying their imaginations along with his. 
Bertha was entranced, simply. She was thinking how she 
would like to play Francesca some day, feeling as if Sun- 


146 


FAMOUS OR mPAMOUS. 


dornc’s burning words must inspire her with power to 
realize his conception. His was hardly the Francesca of 
romance — less tender, but more passionate. Whether it 
were the effect of real poetic and dramatic genius, transpir- 
ing in every line, or simply the communicative ardor of, the 
author that swept away critical tempers, — as he read on, 
without scenic aid of any sort, his audience, beholding 
through the mirror of his mind, as if hypnotized, saw all 
distinctly, scenes, personages, action, as here presented to 
them ; following him in his trains of thought, his flights of 
passion. 

Wilfrid was attending with an artist’s appreciation of the 
poetical beauties of Sundorne’s work, and an actor’s natural 
interest in the points offered for the display of special his- 
trionic ability. Dr. Blake looked at Marcia. Her mouth 
was grave, her eyes were downcast. The reading brought 
her no revelation. Every line she knew by heart already. 

There came one — a lover’s speech — a phrase in no way 
startling where it fell — it was so apt. As he uttered it the 
reader flashed a look at Marcia, to which her eyes re- 
sponded like the secret door that flies open at the touch of 
a hidden spring. 

And no one had seen it but Dr. Blake ; and had they 
all seen it, in the glamour of artistic fervor that was on 
them they would have seen nothing but artistic fervor in 
the glance interchanged. 

But as for Dr. Blake — to whom the grandest imaginable 
literary work remained an extraneous, and in the main 
unimportant thing — he heard no word of the remainder. 
Only the cessation of the reader’s voice, and the reverential 
plaudits and encomiums that ensued, let him know the 
play was at an end. Then he, Wilfrid’s brother, went and 
stood at the window, with his back to the company, asking 
himself if he could be in his right mind. He turned again 
to Wilfrid, with a new-born penetration. He looked fagged 
and worn, like a man suffering physically, and mentally 
irritable in consequence ; but no more than so. If the 
shadow of coming evil was over his hearth, he must be 
unaware of its approach. 

“ Decidedly,” thought poor Dr. Blake, “ my head’s 
amiss; my imagination has turned suddenly morbid. 
It’s that horrid immoral play. Why can’t these authors 
confine themselves to decent subjects ? ” 


FA MO c/s OF INFAMOUS. 


U7 


The impression stuck to him. Nobody wanted to talk 
to him ; he stood apart, and, left to his musings, they 
took once more the fantastic turn he scouted. 

Despite Robert’s happy persuasion, of seven years’ 
growth, that the welfare of his now famous brother, public 
and private, was as safe as the dome of St. Paul’s, he had 
not wholly forgotten the old chequered days when he saw 
mostly precarious elements in the future, and in croaking 
moments his soul prophesied that Wilfrid’s talents would 
in all probability be the ruin of him. Marcia had changed 
all that. To conceive of Marcia as changing was like feel- 
ing the ground beneath him rock. Here, looking across 
the room, his eye fell upon Sundorne, standing to receive 
the homage of all ; the very picture of the Usurper ; one 
whose dominion, bitterly contested, has been wrested from 
hardly overcome resistance, and is essentially despotic — 
tyrannical in its exercise, knowing — 

“ . . . . Nor pity nor remorse 

Nor dread ; but only purpose.” 

Marcia, the prop of Wilfrid’s existence, the savior of his 
fame and prosperity, the treasurer of all that he possessed 
that was precious, the genius of his home, the mother of 
his children, she whose household virtues and beneficial 
ability had forced the tribute of admiration from her un- 
willing brother-in-law — (though of her manner of working 
he had but elementary ideas, as of how bees build their 
hive) — she treacherous at heart ? turning false at the last ? 
His nature, his reason, revolted at the thought. 

Yet he was no sentimentalist to start with, and his pro- 
fessional experience had let him into the sorrowful secrets 
of many a smooth-seeming inhiage, and shown him hollow- 
ness and havoc underlying many a fair surface. He was 
no subject for pleasant illusions. But he knew that Marcia 
had been to his brother something more than that per- 
fect wife that' creation’s lord can demand among his female 
subjects. His better fortune, by dint of her absolute self- 
surrender. Wilfrid was an artist of rare faculties ; Sun- 
dorne something rarer, an original thinker and writer ; 
and yet it may be that Marcia was the cleverest of the 
three. 

Dr. Blake had taken for granted that wifely love had 
made every wifely service sweet. Was it possible that she 


148 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


had never loved him — or come to love him less ? Wilfrid’s 
faults were patent ; but to Dr. Blake, who had never had 
to suffer from them, they appeared venial, spots on the 
sun. What fiend could do him the traitor’s service to 
turn away the heart, the faith of 

“ Zounds ! that confounded poetical jargon has made an 
idiot of me,” he exclaimed inwardly. He likened himself 
to the sensitive spectator who rose in the theatre to protest 
against the stage-murder of Desdemona. It was ludicrous, 
simply. He, the practical, unimaginative Philistine ! 

He contrived to get round to Bertha’s side, meaning to 
restore his equanimity by talking about the weather. 

But the first thing he said was : 

“ Sundorne comes here a good deal, I suppose.” 

“ Oh, yes,” replied Bertha serenely. “ He works in the 
garden, you know.” 

“Works in the garden?” echoed the literal inquirer, 
puzzled by the suggested vision of the poet pruning the 
rose-trees or driving the mowing-machine. Bertha laughed 
at his stupidity. 

“Writes in the garden. Don’t you remember that the 
summer-house was turned into a study for him long ago ? 
Last spring he came there every day. He lodges close 
by.” 

“ How do you like him yourself? ” he asked confiden- 
tially. 

“ ‘ Like ’ is not the word,” said Bertha. “ I admire — yes, 
I revere him even.” 

“ You mean that you admire what he writes.” 

“ Himself also. For his character strikes me as quite 
as extraordinary as his compositions. He is a man of iron 
determination in following out a purpose, anything on 
which his heart is set ; nothing daunts or checks or deters 
him. Such men do great things.” 

“ Great wrongs sometimes,” said Dr. Blake roughly. 

Bertha laughed, unconverted. “ Marcia says ” she 

began, and paused. 

“ Well, what does Marcia say ? ” asked the doctor. 

“That ordinary laws and rules are not applicable to him 
— to any one so entirely exceptional.. They cannot be, 
since they must be founded on the needs and possibilities 
of the majority ; and laws made to fit the exceptions 
would be unsuited to average men, for whom they are 
devised.” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


149 


“ Detestable sophistry ! Pernicious nonsense ! ” thought 
he, but he held his tongue, loth to quarrel with Bertha, even 
for her Sundorne-worship. 

“ Marcia understands him better than any one. She 
does what she likes with him,” said Bertha flatly. 

Dr. Blake stared at her in stupefaction. What was the 
matter with all these people ? They saw, they stated the 
facts, and yet stopped short of the plain inference. He 
felt suddenly how immeasurably horrified Bertha would be 
by the faintest suspicion of what was passing in his mind. 

Now Robert Blake, though a sorry sort of lover, had the 
making of a good friend in him. The refinements of life 
were beyond him, his perceptions limited ; which some- 
times helped him to see with directness where the vision of 
others was confused by many and conflicting impressions. 
His stolidity had at once detected what, paradoxical 
though it sounds, was too palpable for quick wits to 
discern. He was perfectly satisfied that Sundorne was 
the disturbing element he had been looking for. But 
Marcia? To condemn her thus summarily was impos- 
sible, unjust. 

He manoeuvred to get near her, and fancied she tried to 
avoid him. He persisted, outstaying the first departures, 
then, seizing a moment when Wilfrid and Sundorne were 
engaged in argument and the others respectfully listening, 
he presumed on his familiar relationship to draw her aside. 
Marcia resigned herself. 

“ I want to speak to you,” he said friendlily and confi- 
dentially — a physician has a license to be tiresome — 
“ about Wilfrid. I don’t think him looking well, you 
know.” 

“ Not ? ” said Marcia impassively. 

“ He thoroughly overdid himself last season, I suspect ; 
and change of air seemed to have failed of its usual result. 
Must have gone to the wrong place this time.” 

“ Yes, it was much too cold in the Engadine,” said 
Marcia. “ I saw it was doing him harm, and proposed to 
go on to the Italian lakes. But he put off making up his 
mind till it was too late to be worth while.” 

“ Well, he looks worse than when he went away,” said 
the doctor bluntly. “ We mustn’t have him break down.” 

“ They are pushing on this new revival, and he is acting 
in Rienzi up to the night before the first performance. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


150 

After that all will be right again. You know that with him 
it is always so/’ 

‘‘ Could you not induce him to pull in a little — to insist 
on a week’s postponement of the new piece — just to give 
him breathing-time between?” 

Marcia shook her head, saying, I did suggest it ; but 
he scouted the idea, as quite unnecessary.” 

“ I have been accustomed to think that there are no 
bounds to your influence, Marcia,” said Robert Blake 
gravely. “ If I lay stress on the necessity of his sparing 
himself just at this moment, be assured it is because I 
suspect it to be imperative. I know very well how difficult 
he is to deal with. I never could do anything with him in 
that way myself. Why, when we were youngsters and 
walked the Alps together, I remember thinking that if he 
were to take to jumping down a precipice by way of an 
experiment in diversion, I could never deter him, but 
should probably end by jumping too.” 

Marcia heard, endured, but made no responsive sign. 
Her evident incredulity baffled without reassuring her 
interlocutor. He saw he had defeated his own end ; it 
had slipped out in his manner that beneath this ostensible 
anxiety for his brother’s health lurked some other dissatis- 
faction. He resumed lamely : 

” I needn’t tell you what a nervous subject he is,” 
and he noted the faint curl of her handsome lips, pitying, 
but tinged with contempt. It disheartened and irritated 
him at once. No doubt Wilfrid’s wife had a trying time 
of it, with his fitful instability and unreason, his extremes 
of depression and the reverse. But what else were wives 
there for? Your cigar might as well complain of being 
smoked. However, Marcia had never complained, he 
must admit. 

“ I don’t want to alarm you, but you are aware that his 
constitution renders him liable to attacks that before now 
have threatened to lake a serious form,” he said, resuming 
his professional manner. 

You mean the neuralgia he suffers from,” said Marcia. 

“ We call it so,” said Dr. Blake. “ But here it is 
symptomatic, as we say ; evidence of chronic liability to 
nervous disturbance which, if aggravated, might lead to 
grave consequences — ^how grave I could not foretell. The 
first essential is that his mind should be kept as free as 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


151 

possible from worry. Without that, prescriptions are so 
much waste paper, and 7'egime is worthless.” 

As he spoke on, awkwardly, and with increasing effort, 
he was cursing the hazard that had thrust a blunt, plain- 
spoken animal like himself into a strait of this description. 
A donkey trying to execute an egg-dance would have 
about as good a chance of treading unerringly the delicate 
ground. By force of habit he was violently desirous to 
act ; to try something, ; as he would order a drug or an 
application for a patient, though well aware it could avail 
no more than the witch-doctor’s spells and charms of old 
to expel disease. 

Drop a hint to Bertha? He would sooner have cut out 
his tongue. She inspired him with a chivalrous delicacy 
not otherwise instinctive in him. To Wilfrid? Some 
enemy should do that. Sundorne ? Preach to the light- 
ning, and warn it not to strike that church because you 
worship there ! Remained Marcia. He said to himself 
this wrong could not be deliberate. She was a woman, 
and therefore weak, and vain, and easily blinded ; facts 
she had managed to make them all forget, though facts as 
general to the sex as their long hair and petticoats. But 
not utterly heartless and perverse for that. 

Abruptly he broke the short silence, just in time to stop 
her from rising and leaving him. • 

“ When Wilfrid went on the stage, seven years ago, I 
boded no good from it. If you wish to know, I thought it 
would kill him, one way or another.” 

“ It is so,” said Marcia. ‘‘ Many breakdown under the 
first strain, but the ordeal hardens those who surmount it ; 
and whatever they suffer in that way afterwards, it does 
not shorten their lives.” 

“ If he passed through it unhurt — alive,” said Dr. Blake 
desperately and very low, “ it was thanks to you, Marcia. 
He may not know, nor you. But I am sure of it.” 

“Yes, I know,” said Marcia in a gentler, less con- 
strained tone. 

Dr. Blake fancied his words had made some impression. 
It was certain that her eyes sought Wilfrid, as he stood 
listening, not Sundorne, who was holding forth to him ; 
and their compassionate expression — though as when you 
look down on what arouses it from a great, great distance 
— was perplexingly free from bitterness, avoidance, or 


152 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


conscious embarrassment. Partly satisfied, Dr. Blake 
thought the moment favorable for taking leave j and he 
went. 


CHAPTER XI. 

JOIE DE RUE, DOULEUR DE MAISON. 

From that night in the garden it seemed to Marcia as 
though a great cleft had sprung between her and the whole 
of her past when she and Sundorne were strangers. Her 
present life had begun one day last year, when returning 
home she found that unknown guest on her hearth ; and it 
had grown so full of consequence and price that it dwarfed 
the aspect of what lay behind. 

Yes, there was once a girl they called Marcia Day, who 
led a happy girlish life with the most delightful of fathers. 
She married Carroll the actor. She was something more 
than a model wife. Ask him ! And their home peace 
seemed to be founded on a rock. Had the rock been rent 
by some phenomenal force, or was it of sand from the 
beginning, after all ? From that September night it had 
crumbled rapidly, as a dead body that has preserved its 
life-like appearance crumbles upon sudden exposure to the 
open air. 

The heart, the life, was de})arting from the companion 
that remained by Wilfrid’s side. Onl>^ the cheating sem- 
blance was left. That perennial fountain of help, of sym- 
pathy and intelligence, no longer flowed so freely for him. 
He suffered from it without knowing why, totally unaware 
of the extent of his dependence on Marcia. 

And he had been so ardent a pioneer in pushing Siin- 
dorne’s advancement that at the first Marcja, in seconding 
him, had merely been acting up to her habitual role, anti- 
cipating her husband’s wishes. But the something that had 
been wrong in Switzerland — until when he had remained 
but imperfectly conscious of the change — the result of the 
deflection of Marcia’s sympathies and energies, began after 
their return home to associate itself in his mind with the 
deflecting force. They were only Wilfrid’s now at moments 
when he was serving Sundorne. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


153 


The great man had a despotic way of claiming Marcia’s 
time and attention as though she were his secretary. 
Wilfrid, formerly obliged to her for according them, and 
thus saving everybody a world of worry, chafed under the 
continuance of what had grown a habit ; though he could 
not point to any special thing as neglected in consequence. 
And his unquenchable admiration for Sundorne’s genius, 
his sense of his claim to veneration in the art-communion 
of which he himself was a votary, made him — his impulses 
were always generous — the slower to divine the damning 
facts. 

Once though, a something said, in itself of trivial import, 
roused in him a sudden, mad, murderous instinct towards 
the speaker, Sundorne. He felt as though, had it been 
any other, he must have struck him down. Then the next 
minute he perceived that the man was self-engrossed, and 
his flash of jealous fury appeared like an aberration. 

He thought — and was glad of it — that he had not be- 
trayed himself to Marcia. She did not always read him 
clearly now. But this time she had done so. Her present 
position was torture to her, that worsened daily; and 
Sundorne, who saw that, was impatient, nay fearful, of its 
prolongation. 

Once he found her with the two children clinging round 
her, like creepers to the tree. Something more than fond- 
ness linked them : the union of identity. He watched the 
group with knit brows, deeply disturbed, as he presently 
asked her, in the Italian into which they sometime fell 
when talking together : 

“ Could you bear to lose these ? ” 

“ If I must,” she answered fixedly, paling at the thought. 
“ But something tells me I shall keep them both, where- 
ever I may be.” 

His eyes searched her in wonder. 

“ It is not of my love and care that I shall deprive them 
by any act of mine,” she said enigmatically. 

Then, as if in answer to Sundorne’s inquiring look, she 
laid Eva’s head on her shoulder. Their hair mingled, 
indistinguishable. 

“Whose face is that? ” she asked him. 

“Your own.” The only possible answer. 

“ And the boy — his voice and ways ? mine too. They 
will have no part nor lot here or anywhere where I am 
not.” 


154 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


Sundorne heard her, grave and incredulous. She seemed 
most strangely confident. 

You would have said in those days she had set herself 
to knit the little ones to her more closely. No need. 
They drew life from her in every sense. They were too 
young to be more to their father than a pretty sight, and 
a possible nuisance. Such a father too, with his life so 
full already ! A month of their noise^ their questionings, 
their exactions, their childish maladies, would have driven 
him, if not into a mad-house, into a certain sympathy with 
infanticides. Only with Marcia could they expand. She 
was the divinity of their young religion. 

They had lost all dread of Sundorne, and begun to take 
to him from the day when they found him tending a starv- 
ing mongrel that had been run over in the street, and 
that he nursed till it got well and ran away; though it bit 
him for his pains. The Erl King was not so terrible after 
all ; nor ugly, when you saw him close. He liked them ; 
they were no more in his way than birds flitting about ; 
and they were emanations from the being with whom the 
whole of his wishes was interwined. 

Dr. Blake, if the first, was not long the only outsider to 
comrnent on Sundorne’s altered relations in prosperity to 
the friends who had taken him up in adversity. Careless 
jests dropped first ; then conjectural gossip, malicious 
hints — they never reached Wilfrid’s ears. He was not the 
sort of man to whom it was possible to go and say — with 
reason or without — that he ought to forbid Sundorne his 
house. But they came to Bertha’s hearing, to be repu- 
diated by her with strenuous indignation, as slanders from 
which great names are never free. Instead of opening her 
eyes, they cheated her vision. Calumny was astir, and its 
evident malice forbade her to vouchsafe it even a passing 
consideration. 

Perhaps Wilfrid, of them all, had most readily taken the 
mental habit of regarding Sundorne, in his common rela- 
tions, as a privileged individual, not called upon to con- 
form to usages others can only neglect at their peril. For 
he felt in himself a claim to latitude of this sort, and Sun- 
dorne, as unquestionably the greater man, might presume 
still further. “The King can do no wrong.” An old 
fiction, with an eternal truth behind it. That in the chief 
is conquest, which in the commoner is fraud and felony. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


155 


He judicially murders, yet suffers no penalty, not even 
loss of honor and affection. Even so with the artist and 
master. Dun him for filthy lucre which he has paid over 
and over again in the pure gold of thought ! If you do 
not feel you have the best of the bargain you write your- 
self down a Philistine. He violates your social laws, yet 
society remains his debtor, and owns it, by tacitly forgiv- 
ing the worst. 

Only Carroll, with apparent reason, had come to regard 
Marcia as so exclusively a part and parcel of himself, that 
the idea of their disunion through Sundorne, the joint object 
of their honest enthusiasm — there he himself had led the 
way — was unnatural, and even now when it threatened 
to take root in his mind his reason repudiated it as a 
noxious growth. 

Although they two had grown reckless of late, and kept 
no watch over their lips and eyes, the frankness itself of 
their relation acted as a mo^re effectual disguise than 
attempted secrecy. Bertha saw them, heard them — they 
were rarely if ever alone together — and so used was she to 
look up to Sundorne as a master divinity, to be worshiped 
accordingly, that the human worship escaped her. 

But Wilfrid, though all around him went on as usual, 
seemed to breathe a mephitic moral atmosphere ; and one 
day, at a perfectly imaginary provocation, as it chanced, 
his irritation broke out in such a violent ebullition of ill 
temper towards Marcia, borne by her so angelically, that 
he had a prick of remorse. 

But she said a word to Sundorne, who made up his 
mind on the spot to leave London for a time the next day, 
although Francesca was on the eve of production. He 
had superintended the rehearsals and felt no anxiety 
about the performance. Marcia approved his resolution. 
Then he looked at her intently, in doubt or dread. 

“ Why linger, Marcia ? " said he. 

“ Wait,” said she. 

“ Will not your courage fail ? ” he asked her. “ I have 
judged you as I wish to find you. Have you strength, 
will you dare to come into exile ? ” 

“ With you — into exile, or captivity, or what they call 
the grave,” she answered him. “ My only home, my only 
freedom, my only life now. But wait a little. Francesca 
first. Then for you and me.” 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


*56 

“ I trust you,” he said, and kissed her hand and went. 

It was well. Wilfrid, until now the prey to a mon- 
strous-seeming jealousy, had henceforth to do with a malig- 
nant suspicion. Then, Sundorne gone — he had betaken 
himself across the channel — he had a revulsion of feeling, 
and would once more have put the distrust from him as a 
bad thought. Rob had told him not so long ago that his 
nerves were out of order ; and he was sadly aware how 
apt this was to distort his reason and his sentiments. But 
just now he appeared well again in health ; his recupera- 
tive powers were wont to belie the calculations of medical 
science. Even his brother had not a word to say. 

Fra?icesca was produced with a success that even Sun- 
dorne could not quarrel with as insufficient. The love 
element, much more prominent here than in Nt/ig Rupert., 
gave it an easier passport to public favor, and the doubtful 
morality was forgiven ; as we do forgive it, when the sub- 
ject is historical and Italian to boot. Sundorne attached 
no more importance to the work than would a musical 
composer to a light cantata. He was already engrossed, 
said the papers, in his new historical drama of We?itworth^ 
something on a more ambitious scale ; and had buried 
himself in an out-of-the-way French village for six months, 
to work at it undisturbed. 

At this time Marcia had arranged for the children to 
pay a visit to Surrey Lodge, where they stayed occasion- 
ally. When she expressed her wish to go down with them 
for two nights, Wilfrid objected peremptorily, though with 
no pretext to allege but an unimportant society engage- 
ment. 

She frustrated his expectation by yielding at once, with 
evident indifference. She merely said : 

“Well, the children can go with nurse, I suppose. I 
can always trust them to her.” 

The children’s coming and going was of no account to 
^Vilfrid. They left, and in the house there reigned a dead 
calm that was not the calm of fine weather. 

The following afternoon Wilfrid chanced to enter the 
drawing-room at the moment when the servant brought 
Marcia a foreign letter. It was a revelation to them both 
of the real state of his mind, that, as she read, his eyes 
strained to see the writing. 

“ Sundorne ? ” he asked. 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS, 


157 


Yes.” He thought her color changed faintly 

“ He writes to you ? ” 

‘‘ Certainly.” 

Wilfrid knew perfectly well that she had written him 
detailed accounts of the recent representations of Francesca 
where she had been the author’s proxy. 

His angry tone at this juncture came almost as a relief 
to Marcia. What smote her deadlily was his occasional 
forbearance ; his reluctance to think evil of her. Just now 
another sentiment prevailed. 

“ 4nd what, pray, has he to write ? ” 

Marcia raised her sphinx-like eyes, hesitated for an 
instant, then handed the letter across to her husband. 

Her ready submission checked and shamed the devil in 
him. He must read, he felt ; but generosity prepossessed 
him in her favor now. 

Sundorne wrote from St. Jean de la Roche, the rural 
refuge where he had pitched his tent, somewhat at random : 

“ Dear Friend, 

The loneliness I longed for hems me in like a shroud. I loathe 
the solitude, the repose I loved and missed. I feel like the emperor 
who rehearsed his death scene, and passed the night in his coffin. 
Another sunrise will not find me here. You tell me my Francesca 
thrives, in spite of my desertion. Good news, that I, who left her to 
fare as best she might, scarcely seem to deserve to hear. I must have 
done with shunning. I will be there to-morrow night.” 

Well though she knew him, Marcia could not have said 
positively whether it was of herself or of his work that Sun- 
dorne wrote. Did she wish that Wilfrid would take it 
amiss, as the warrant for an outburst of insulting violence, 
belie the gentleness and elevation of his nature and his love 
for her, vilify Sundorne, denounce, threaten them both, 
and thus push her irresistibly on the track whither she was 
bound ? She certainly expected it. But of late — was it 
he that was changing, or that she was losing her old art of 
divination where he was concerned ? — he never did what 
she expected. 

He let the paper fall to the ground ; a vacant, distant 
look came into his eyes. Marcia could not guess at what 
was passing in his mind. 

When he spoke again, his voice was altered strangely. 
It wounded her, as might an appeal from her little boy, had 
she hurt him. 


158 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


“ Marcia,” he said, ‘‘ I think Rob must really be right, 
after all, and that this overwork is hurting my brain.” 

“ Why ? ” she asked in a whisper. 

“ I see faces as they are not, things that are not, cannot 
be there. I ask myself if I am in my right mind.” 

She was silent, her heart beating violently. Why did he 
refuse utterly to abandon his faith in her, and follow up 
suspicion, now that he held the clue ? Why must the 
wrong be all on one side to-night? The inherent genero- 
sity that prompted his forbearance wrung her, and shook 
her purpose, as nothing else could have done. 

There was a weary silence. He looked at his watch. 
It was more than time for him to start for the theatre. The 
carriage was waiting. 

He rose, standing between her and the doorway. Mar- 
cia had a strange feeling as of not having seen him for a 
long time. Dead memories stirred, — unquiet ghosts. His 
good genius, in a supreme effort to prevail, had effected 
something towards it. The mask-like look of icy deter- 
mination her beautiful countenance had assumed of late 
relaxed ; her lips quivered painfully. He had touched a 
string, and some old responsive instinct had answered. 

Seven o’clock , and the stage waits. Carroll, the public 
servant, is not his own master. 

“ Are you coming, Marcia ? ” he asked her. 

“ Not now,” she murmured tremulously. 

“ Later then,” he said, in a tone that was like an echo 
of a distant past. 

Later,” she repeated mechanically, as if in assent. 

“ Then good-bye,” he said, “ till then.’' 

Wilfrid had come near ; stood still a moment, then 
stooped down and kissed her cheek. Marcia was pro- 
foundly agitated. A convulsive sob nearly escaped, nearly 
betrayed her, but she controlled herself until he had left the 
room. 

Then she buried her head in her hands despairingly. 
She had told Sundorne she would not flinch. She did not 
know herself, after all. 

She had fallen completely under the spell of his despotic 
nature. For her who would serve such a master to any 
purpose there must be no looking back. But for one instant, 
in his absence, the glamour was broken, and she saw things 
in their true, their eternal light. Not for Sundorne, not for 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


»59 

the most commanding genius that ever the world saw, not 
for his mighty love, or hers, would she be doing well. 

An hour passed ; she was still sitting there in the half- 
lit room, alone with her thought. If she wavered not nor 
repented, she suffered during that hour. 

“ Kill me, Sundorne,” she murmured to herself, just aloud, 
“ and then let me live again, with you.” 

The room grew cold, the fire extinct on the hearth. She 
heard the click of the gate at the bottom of the garden, and 
remembered that Sundorne still had his key. 

And the door opened, and he was there. 

“ Marcia,” his voice rang with exultant, wholly fulfilled 
expectation, as though he had known he should find her 
here thus alone in the gloom awaiting his bidding, the 
summons mysteriously foreboded in his letter. 

“ The night is waiting for us,” he said. 

“ I am ready,” said Marcia, and stood up ; but her 
voice had not the joyful exultation of his. 

He came and placed his hand on her shoulder, and saw 
how deadly pale was her face in the gloom. 

“ Marcia,” he spoke agitatedly, “ do not come, leaving 
your heart here.” 

“ I have no heart,” faltered Marcia, “ that is not yours, 
and you know it. Where you enter you remain, expelling, 
absorbing — it is the same. Since so it is, why linger ? as 
you said ? ” 

“ Will you not look back, let scruples torment you, and 
men’s tongues and evil report make you repent? ” 

“ Do not I know what I am doing ? ” said Marcia ex- 
citedly. “ Never a woman sinned as I shall have sinned, 
in the judgment of all — vows, faith, love, honor, trampled 


“ Words, words,” said Sundorne. “ They can harm us 
no more than the screaming of swifts and swallows. Keep 
us apart ? Name the human power strong enough to do 
that ! Neither might, nor what they call right.” 

She shuddered faintly ; he had taken her hand and drew 
her, unresisting, towards him. All-constraining to her were 
his voice, his presence, the infinite promise of unspoken love 
boded in his whisper : 

“ Only death can sunder us once you are mine.’ 

“ Yours, for life and immortality,” murmured Marcia, 
looking up into his face. 


l6o 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


There is no other immortality but this,” he said, as he 
laid her head on his breast ; whilst his left hand held the 
scroll of his other love, the other Francesca. 

Marcia was conquered. Her relenting had been the 
work of a force already irrevocably overcome. A half-slain 
thing, buried, had burst the coffin lid, and startled her, to 
torment her by showing a remnant of life, then fell back, 
spent and powerless. 

There was another world she was mortally eager to make 
her own. But for that, the past must be as though it had 
not been. Away from here, where the house, the furniture, 
were relics she shrank from as from dead men’s bones and 
skulls in a vault ! 


CHAPTER XII. 

AWAKING. 

Dr. Blake took his better half to the Theatre Royal that 
night ; the management had sent them stalls in the front 
row. The doctor’s wife was twice happy ; in Carroll, her 
brother-in-law’s applauded performance, and in taking 
notes of the occupants of the Royal Box. She could not 
think what made her husband fidget so. 

Dr. Robert — whose uneasiness had been dulled of late, 
not forgotten — from tlie first moment that Wilfrid stepped 
on the scene had remarked hint upon hint he took to denote 
fresh mischief brewing. He went behind the curtain 
between the acts ; but was reassured to find his brother 
soberness itself, though laboring under one of his capri- 
cious short comings of physical energy when the necessity 
before him of spurring himself to nervous effort and simu- 
lating emotion seemed like the task of moving a mountain, 
a material impossibility. 

Dr. Blake returned to his stall somewhat tranquilized. 
Then, towards the end, he had a fright. Wilfrid paused 
oddly, half-way through a speech, looked about — and 
Robert was the only person in the house who detected 
that his memory kad suddenly failed him, in a part he 
knew as well as his own name — worse, he seemed unable 
to take the prompt. He recovered himself just in time, 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


i6i 


but Dr. Blake had never known such a thing happen to 
him before. 

He got through, with his customary applause ; but Dr. 
Blake, going to his dressing-room after the fall of the 
curtain, found him on the verge, apparently, of a fainting- 
fit. Had it but come to that, the medical man might have 
taken matters into his own hands ; but Wilfrid’s whole 
consciousness seemed to have turned to nervous irritability, 
breaking out in such extraordinary aversion to his brother’s 
presence as a witness to the scene, that the latter saw he 
was making matters worse by remaining. Nobody else 
showed the least surprise or concern. And did not Robert 
know, as well as they, that he was often thus ? 

But where was Marcia ? What was she about ? Robert’s 
futile anxiety quickened his wrath with her for neglect. 
How' could she relax her solicitude in tending this precious 
life, even for a moment.? His own hand was too clumsy. 
He w’oulJ cheerfully have cut off his little finger to set his 
brilliant brother to rights, but he had never been able to 
find the word in season that would be listened to. There 
was nothing for it but to hold his tongue, endure his 
apprehensions, and go. With a heavy heart he rejoined 
his wife, to receive a tart scolding for having kept her 
waiting thus — a matron all forlorn ! He cut her short with 
a sharp word which Mrs. Blake forgave him this once. It 
was so obvious he had a serious trouble on his mind. She 
did not even ask what it was ; the best way, as she knew, 
to make him tell her all, which he did before they got 
home. 

Wilfrid re-entered his carriage trying in vain to recollect 
whether he w^as to expect Marcia or not. Something, it 
seemed to him now, had been said about it ; but in the 
reaction after that night’s work his memory had deserted 
him ; his faculties were thrown into fantastic disorder. 

A trivia] word of contradiction from a comrade had 
affected him like an insult that can only be wiped out in 
blood ; jarring little incidents like the rattle past of a 
noisy cart, or slight collision of the vehicle he was in, 
were of more account than the fate of nations. 

He had two selves, different, not contradictory, as a 
shallow psychology would represent. At this moment he 
was Carroll the artist, a being of exaggerated sensibilities, 
and vivid, uncontrolled imagination, intemperate in speech, 

11 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


162 

violent, selfishly cruel in action, with nerves as susceptible 
as a woman’s, and the strongest man’s power to suffer 
from them ; and no tittle of a woman’s patience. Moments 
when he felt he could have strangled a child for crying, 
flung a living thing into the fire for startling him. His 
mental energy had been drained out of him by the effort of 
imagination, leaving him incapable of the commonest 
effort of judgment or self-control. Moments tolerably 
frequent, when he had best not meet the gaze of critic or 
censor, or of any but one. His body was quivering with 
nervous pain ; seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking, all was 
pain to his distraught senses ; and he missed the panacea 
that used to woo them back to painlessness, nay to enjoy- 
ment, soothing and healing his mind’s disease by an inde- 
scribable sympathy that was like insj)iration, in days near, 
yet how far back ! He had come to rely on it as surely 
as on his carriage at the door, trust to it for concealing his 
mortal frailty from the world, and nullifying its operation 
on himself ; a staff he had leant on till he ignored his 
lameness, though once or twice lately the staff had gone 
through his hand and pierced him. 

The drive home seemed a series of petty tortures. The 
sleepy coachman, when he drew up at the house, opened 
his eyes at the malediction hurled at him for his bad 
driving, as Wilfrid dismounted and admitted himself. It 
was past midnight. He now clearly recollected that they 
had an engagement to a stupid evening party, to which 
that morning he had expressed his wish that Marcia would 
go by herself, and make his excuses. In that case she 
might not yet have returned. 

The light was burning in the dining-room, and the first 
thing it showed him, as he mechanically threw himself into 
his accustomed chair, was a letter in her handwriting on 
the table. He stared at his own name on the envelope ; 
it looked like a stranger’s. Some trivial message, pre- 
sumably. Yet he felt as when a truth is being yelled into 
your ears in an unknown tongue ; the sense of which lays 
hold of you, before the interpretation comes. 

He broke it open. History tells of poisoned notes, 
whose mere handling destroyed the hostile life you would 
cut off. Wilfrid had not read a word of what was on the 
slip of paper in his hand ; blinded by the recurrence of 
that stab of physical pain that had overtaken him after 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


163 

the play and alarmed his brother — he was suffocating — 
felt his senses slipping away again, like a man falling from 
a height. He got to the window and flung it wide open ; 
the rush of bitter cold air restored him. In a moment he 
would be all right, and read the letter. 

In a few moments he found himself in another part of 
the room, walking to and fro, talking, laughing, it seemed 
to himself, but no sound came. 

What Marcia had written was this : 

“ To ask your pardon were an insult. God forgive me. 
Forget me, you.” 

Who are the fellest executioners? Not Dante’s fiends, 
doing judgment on the guilty; nor yet Orestes’ pursuers, 
haunting shapes of remorse ; but the harpies that beset 
the innocent. Such as were now dinning into Wilfrid’s 
ears, “ Marcia is false; Marcia.” All through the night, 
and to-morrow, and his life long, he must listen. “ Marcia, 
your playfellow, your wife, your servant, and more than 
sovereign ; she is of the stuff that traitors are made of, 
deserters, assassins.” 

And another voice whispered : “ You knew it ; you 

knew it. In Switzerland you knew it, and here since, and 
to-night, before you went out. And had your knowledge 
been as clear again, it could have served you nothing.” 

So a fool and a blind man awakes from a seven years’ 
dream, begun in that far-off Italian garden at Mera. 
There she first crossed his path, steadfast seeming, con- 
stant and pure as the distant Mera glacier. And as far 
out of reach of the young adventurer who had yet dared 
to ask a question of her eyes, whose answer set him 
dreaming. 

Since then they had travelled far, on a rarely prosperous 
voyage, that none the less was to lead hither, where all 
was crying on him to curse her existence and his own. 

The night passed; the grey morning light crept in 
through the white blind ; the deathly chill of a wintry 
dawn, striking through the open window, filled the room : 
he felt nothing of it. The morning sounds began ; the 
dust-carts, the sparrows’ chirpings, the clatter of an occa- 
sional passing footstep. Wilfrid heard them unintelli- 
gently, as unmeaning noises like the knocking of the 
blind against the window frame. 


FAMOUS OR infamous. 


164 

A sudden ring at the door-bell broke his lethargy ; and 
he perceived that it was past seven o’clock, and the ser- 
vants were stirring above. Who could this early visitor 
be? He rose with difficulty, for his limbs were stiffened 
by the cold, walked into the front hall and opened the 
door. There stood his brother Robert. 

To relieve his pressing uneasiness Dr. Blake had deter- 
mined on this untimely call of inquiry, before his own 
morning engagements began. He would invent some 
pretext ; see Marcia, insist on some medical treatment, if 
needed. 

At a glance he saw to his dismay how his coming was 
more than justified. He had not believed Wilfrid could 
look so much worse than when they parted after the play. 
The speech prepared stuck in his throat. 

“ Come in,” said Wilfrid, who showed no surprise, but 
turning, led the way down the passage, forgetting to close 
the front door. Dr. Blake did that, and shut himself with 
his brother into the dining-room. 

He looked round, struck by the piercing cold of the 
apartment where Wilfrid, whom he had left in a highly 
feverish condition, had apparently been spending the 
night. The sickly glare of the lamp mixing with the pale 
morning light showed him the fireless grate, the open 
window, the untasted supper. 

“ Good God, Wilfrid ! tell me what it is ! ” he exclaimed. 

“ Marcia,” said Wilfrid, with a complete absence of 
emotion, as though his words were but empty sounds, 
“ has gone to France to-night — with him — with Sundorne.” 

What Robert had dimly apprehended, foreseen, foretold, 
shocked him in the event, just as if it had burst upon an 
unsuspecting soul. 

“ How do you know this ? ” he said, with a stunned 
manner. 

‘‘ By her hand,” said Wilfrid, signifying the letter that 
lay there. “ I am to forget her, she says.” 

Forget her,'' Robert echoed mechanically. “Sundorne 
— the scoundrel ” 

“ What are you saying ? ” cried Wilfrid with a taunting 
laugh. “ Sundorne, the great, the unapproachable ? with 
a charter from above to do as he likes. The master on 
earth can do no wrong. If he should want our blood to 
drink must he not have it ? ” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


165 

Dr. Blake was doubly horrified by the evident disorder 
of his brother’s mind ; he had felt sure he was seriously 
ill when he left him, uneasy, but dreaming nothing, how- 
ever, of the pending landslip ! And the murderous chill 
of that room ! No wonder if Wilfrid’s voice was hoarse 
and stifled, and it hurt him to speak and to breathe. Many- 
faced mischief was here to be coped with. 

The doctor contrived to telegraph to his assistant to 
take his place that morning in the consulting-room. To 
Marcia’s servants he said : 

“ Your master is unwell. Mrs. Blake is away. I shall 
stay about.” 

Robert Blake had his fair share of trying experiences, 
but none to compare with the ordeal of the next twelve 
hours. You pity the keeper in a madhouse, the nurse in 
a hospital. The guardian angel of the lunatic at large, 
the sick man who insists on going about his business, has 
an ugly task to which theirs is child’s play. 

Two things seemed imperative to Robert : to get his 
brother away from this house, where every object seemed 
sealed with Marcia’s seal, and to dissuade him from per- 
forming to-night. In his actual condition it would be a 
suicidal sort of risk. But he was no better than a madman 
to argue with. Dr. Blake understood that if he persisted 
he would simply be pushed down the front door steps. It 
was a special performance ; Wilfrid would not hear of with- 
drawing his name. He primed himself with self-prescribed 
restoratives, scouting Robert’s better advised measures ; 
attended the morning rehearsal, swore he never felt better 
in his life. 

Force of habit, the excitation of fever, and a sinister, 
desperate artist’s pride carried him successfully along. Of 
the step Marcia had taken none knew as yet but his 
brother and himself. 

Common-place people are often the most capable in 
calamitous emergencies, their want of imagination sparing 
them a too vivid prevision of the coming worst. Dr. Blake 
did what he could, and then waited for his brother to break 
down. It was a thousand to one, he knew, that Wilfrid 
would never get through his night’s work ; he might lose 
his memory, as had happened yesterday, and not recover 
it ; the train had been laid in more than one direction for 
a disastrous seizure. And Robert silently execrated the 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


1 66 

tyranny of public life, that incited, compelled Wilfrid to 
appear, though at mortal risk, as long as he could stand 
upright, for the sake of a pleasure-seeking audience, and 
his repute with them. 

Dr. Blake was a good husband and father, but the 
weakest spot in his heart even wife and children did not 
touch. It was for him whose place there had been taken 
earlier. Sink Marcia ! Perish Sundorne and all his works ! 
But save his brother Wilfrid frorh the evil ! 

How devoutly thankful he felt when the hideous farce 
was over, Carroll’s part played out, the curtain dropped. 
Then Robert made his way back to the actor’s dressing- 
room. There sat Wilfrid, with a puzzled, scared look ; he 
signed to Robert to keep others from entering. 

“ What is happening to me ? ” he said, attempting to 
laugh. “ I don’t seem able to move my right arm.” 

Dr. Blake was ready with his answer. 

“You have given it a blow somehow, and not felt it in 
the heat of acting. Better drive round with me to my 
house and have it seen to at once.” 

And Wilfrid suffered himself to be driven to Brook 
Street, where a room had been prepared for him. But 
when he reached it he was in such acute pain as to be 
past wonder or remonstrance. 

Early next morning Dr. Blake had an interview with 
Crowe, and a printed notice announced that another actor 
would undertake the role of Carroll, who was indisposed. 
A paragraph inserted in the papers stated that he was 
suffering from a severe attack of inflammation of the lungs. 
Another paper pronounced that it was typhoid fever. In 
the inner circles there were whispers, not confirmed, how- 
ever, by any medical authority, that the popular actor had 
had a stroke of paralysis. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


i6j 


CHAPTER XIII. 

OUTWARD BOUND. 

SuNDORNE sat by himself on the upper deck of the Cher- 
bourg steamer, and an artist of the Romantic school might 
have painted him as the genius of the storm that was blow- 
ing in the Channel, to the nameless terror and discomfort 
of even his male fellow-passengers ; whilst he seemed to 
gloat in his element, like an old sea-lion. His marked 
rugged features stood out under his large slouched hat ; 
his figure was wrapped in a voluminous cloak ; Sundorne’s 
cloak was known to fame, having now been described in 
all the society papers, and become, to their readers, as 
distinctly a curiosity of London as the Lord Mayor's 
coach. 

A voice within him was shouting, “ All’s well,” his 
watchward through the night, as the squaj] smote the 
masts, the ship reeled and labored heavily among the 
breakers, and the bitter winds thundered. He could have 
cried to them, “ Higher ! Louder ! ” It was music to his 
mood. It was like tasting some divine wine ; producing 
a preternatural exhilaration beyond what beneficent sun- 
shine and the beauty of spring landscapes can impart. 
His pulses, his thoughts, his imagination were kindled to 
an intense and delightful activity. Something more than 
a renewal of youth; a foretaste, as it were, of imperishable 
vitality. 

Not another traveler on board but had long ago suc- 
cumbed to the cold, the blinding sleet, and violent tossing, 
and vanished below ; and the sailors winked and wagered 
jokingly how long the old cove yonder would hold out, in 
his obstination to stay on deck. They gave him ten 
minutes at the outside. There came a sudden gust that 
carried away a spar, and gave them other work for a while. 
The gale was now at its worst, ere abating. One of them, 
who was hauling a rope within a few paces of him, here 
saw him light a fresh cigar. His claim to respect was 
established. 


i68 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


Profiting by a moment’s lull, Jack tar remarked. 

“ Ugly weather, sir.” 

“ Those who don’t like it should stop ashore,” the pas* 
senger replied. 

You don’t belong to they, that’s clear,” said the other 
compliinentarily. 

“ I am an old sailor, my lad,” said Sundorne, eyeing the 
speaker with saturnine amusement. 

“ Been long in the service ? ” inquired the man, literally. 

“ Some twenty years. Time enough to see the worst 
that rough weather can do, I warrant you.” 

The junior mariner was puzzled. Was he chaffing? 
The gentleman was a rum’un, anyway. 

“ What ship ? ” he asked, tentatively. 

“ The ‘ Sea Serpent,’ ” answered Sundorne gravely. 

“ Don’t seem to have heard of her.” Still curious, he 
added, “ And what were you, sir, if I may ask ? ” 

Chief mate,” returned Sundorne grimly, “ afterwards 
commander.” 

“ Merchant service, did you say ? ” asked the man. 
Sundorne shook his head. 

“She went out to discover the North Pole,” he said, 
“ and was given up for lost : but came through the ice 
into deep water again, and sailed into port with colors 
flying. She belongs to me now.” 

Chaffing, then, all the while. From the touch of rail- 
lery the tar withdrew as if he had touched a live coal. 
Sundorne was chuckling over his allegory. 

Aye, adversity and he were old mates. Shake hands, 
my brother. He had striven with him all night, a night of 
twenty years, and had prevailed. The morning had come ; 
the triumph of his welfare and his will. 

As the land was neared and the tide turned, the wind 
abated and the breakers sank and sank ; the clouds were 
swept aside and melted away. The dawn was breaking, 
too red to bode fine weather ; but in itself a spectacle of 
surpassing beauty, as it burst and swelled over the horizon, 
a glory of green and pale gold, and changing, flushing tints 
of rose-color. 

Just then Marcia mounted the stairs and appeared at 
their head ; in his sight another such a dawn, as she came 
towards him ; her eyes as clear, her cheeks as fresh, her 
face as fair as Aurora yonder. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


169 

I have only just woken up,” she said. “ I have slept 
all these hours.” 

Slept ! in that Pandemonium of sick and terrified 
women. 

She seated herself near him on the bench at the ship’s 
side, and added : 

“ How much rather would I have stayed and watched 
here with you. But we poor things of women must steal 
a march upon you now and then, if we mean to keep up 
with you. As for you, I believe you are one of the iron 
men that sprang from the dragon’s teeth.” 

He laughed, saying, “ It was wise of you to sleep, 
Marcia. The crossing was rough. Even the sailors made 
faces.” 

“ I had only one bad moment,” she said, dropping her 
voice, and inclining her head a little nearer his ; “ waking 
suddenly just now, and you not there. I flew up.” 

So the storm could not frighten you either.” 

“ Not with you on board.” 

“ You think I bear a charmed life — that death won’t 
have me? I have thought that, too.” 

Her eyes dwelt on his with an indefinable expression ; 
her whole face seemed to smile, faintly, mysteriously. 

“ But now,” she said lightly, “ I am impatient to arrive. 
How much longer ? ” 

“ Twenty minutes.” 

Marcia did not waste them. With a glance she overran 
and made mental memorandum of Sundorne’s belongings. 
He could never move from one place to another without 
leaving something of his fleece in the bushes, as he ex- 
pressed it. He lost everything, and then rated the 
officials, whose fussy, dictatorial ways and red tape infu- 
riated him ; and then got into trouble for using abusive 
language. Consequently he had a profound horror of 
traveling. But, had any one offered to take its practical 
details off his hands, he would have resented it as an 
affront. Most women know what it is to travel about 
with a volcano, calling itself a male protector. Sundorne 
was an extreme instance in point, and Marcia’s vigilant 
attention was needed, cunningly to remedy his errors. 
The small change he dropped she picked up, and took 
some opportunity of restoring to his pocket. The um- 
brella and packages he left on the seat she silently pointed 


170 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


out to a porter ; the cigar-case, the ticket, that went 
astray she put into his hand at the moment he missed 
them, and so unofficiously that he fancied he had given 
them her to keep. He had no idea how the miracle was 
worked, but even the custom-house officials were civil to 
day. In a surprisingly short time he found himself and 
his belongings gathered together in a carriage ; their des- 
tination was within a drive of the port — coachman reason- 
able — porter obliging — no discomfort, no bother. 

“ Is everything in ? ” he asked in naive wonder 

“ I think so,” said Marcia laughingly. “ Nothing ever 
takes leave of me, you know. I am a magnet that won’t 
allow it.” 

Sundorne had never seen her in this playful mood. It 
seemed to say she might have other surprises in store for 
him, all sweet ones. It appeared natural, rightful, to 
have her beside him. The coming total change to his 
existence he could not fully realize ; his spirit, despite 
those flashes of lightning-like elation, had no youthful 
buoyancy. He was slightly fatigued now : and sat silent 
and musing, stilled by a growing sense of a haven entered, 
the beginning of a contentment of which his life long he 
had been deprived. 

So they drove for an hour inland, through the open, 
pastoral country ; the keen morning air on their faces 
tempered by the glow of the risen sun. 

Suddenly Marcia raised her head ; her brow contracted ; 
her eyes seemed to darken ; her countenance was over- 
cast. 

“ One thing I hate,” she said, with still energy, almost 
fiercely. “To have to seem to fly ; to seem to hide. 
When I could make it my boast before all the world that I 
am yours, Sundorne’s choice. To have to shrink, as if 
in shame ” 

“ It will not be for long,” he said, in a very demon’s 
whisper. 

“ I think not, I think not,” said Marcia tremulously. 
“ But till then ” and her voice died. 

“ And if ‘ till then ’ were for ever,” said Sundorne with 
a profound earnestness that, to Marcia, set the seal of 
forgetfulness on the gravestone of the past and made the 
future sure ; “ it is yet well done, for you, Marcia, and for 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


17 


Why doubt ? What should she fear ? Marcia had seen 
something of life ; she knew herself, and Sundorne. One 
who might live long and seek far and not find a help meet 
for him. With a sentiment like his for one like her to 
build upon there seemed absolutely nothing for her to 
dread. She pondered deliciously on her coming task. 

The short drive appeared long, in one sense ; a bridge 
over the gap, deep, inipassable, between her and yesterday. 

They stopped before a plain, green-shuttered roadside 
maisonette, hardly of villa pretensions. 

“Is this the place?” she asked, starting from her 
reverie. 

“ A poor shelter,” he replied, “ but fitter than a palace 
for a resting-place in exile. Why on earth has the fool 
shut all the windows ? ” 

No answer to ring or knock; no sign of life visible. 
Marcia was not surprised. So surely as Sundorne put his 
hand to any practical common-place matter, he boggled it 
past redemption, as no dunce could have done, and then 
stormed like Jupiter. The servant had absconded to her 
home in the village hard by, leaving the door locked. 

Marcia looked on for one moment, almost enjoying Sun- 
dorne’s discomfiture and furious annoyance, ere coming to 
the rescue. 

“ Never mind. Let the carriage drive on to the village 
and fetch her back.” 

“ And we stand here knocking in the meantime ? ” 

“ No; do you see that lower window? it is barely shut, 
and cannot be bolted. Get the driver to open it and 
climb in and unlock the front door. It is amusing, Sun- 
dorne, that you should have to break into your own house, 
like a burglar.” 

The coachman did as commanded ; so there was an 
entrance, at least. 

“ Now let him bring the things inside,” said Marcia, and 
leaving Sundorne to storm to his heart’s content at the 
man’s slowness and stupidity she passed rapidly from 
room to room, opening the jalousies, so that when the 
luggage trouble was over Sundorne found light and air in 
his dwelling. 

“But are you not fainting with hunger?” he said. 
“ That idiot woman ! ” 


172 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


Not yet,” said Marcia. “ But how would it be if you 
drove to the village and brought back some bread and 
some coffee, besides the cook ? ” 

Half the work was done before Sundorne returned from 
his errand, with the impenitent attendant. His own in- 
structions had been at fault ; the dame in charge had mis- 
understood, and not expected him till to-morrow. Imper- 
vious to Sundorne’s wrathful denunciations, she was sub- 
dued by Marcia’s mere presence into a sort of fascinated 
respect. Here was a mistress before whom no fault or 
neglect need hope to escape remark, nor work well done 
fear to remain upcomrnended. 

Sundorne, whilst arranging some of his precious books 
and papers in the room he had selected for his study, was 
surprised at how shortly Marcia came to summon him to 
a morning repast. She and the servant between them had 
contrived an excellent one. Sundorne fared ill when 
alone ; he shirked the trouble of giving detailed orders 
adapted to slower capacities, then raged that his unex- 
plained wishes were not carried out. 

Afterwards he paced the garden-plot, with his cigar ; 
then took a siesta in his study. Some hours passed so. 
Marcia meanwhile had changed her dress and completed 
her household arrangements, giving orders as thoughtfully 
and minutely as though undisturbed by the extraordinary 
nature of her position and events. Then when Sundorne 
emerged slo\vly from the trance or poet’s reverie that had 
succeeded his long and pleasant slumber, the first thing 
that met his eyes was the form they loved, a form like one 
of Michael Angelo’s women, seated there opposite him. 

Wejitworth'' she said laughingly, lovingly. ‘‘That 
was your dream. When shall I hear it ? ” 

“ My thoughts were there,” he said, “ but this waking 
vision scatters them as the sun scatters bats in a barn 
when it breaks in.” 

“ Nay, Sundorne, but that will never do,” she said, with 
a playful earnest. “ If I distract your mind, disperse 
golden thoughts, I shall have to go away, to hide myself — 
your enemy. Hannibal must not find his Capua in this 
maiso7iette. There are more fields to be won. You will 
not forget them.” 

“ To-day,” he said, “ I may think of you only.” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


173 


It was a radiant face she turned to him. Sundorne 
could not speak. Oh, rare content ! There was a world 
of delight for him in every moment. 

They were silent long. The light wind played to the 
dance of the dead leaves. 

“ It is very quiet here,” he said by-and-bye. 

“ I hope it is,” said Marcia. “ I shall declare war to 
extermination to noise and disturbance of any kind. If I 
must be your distraction, Sundorne, at least I will be your 
only one. And though I hinder, I may perhaps help 
too.” 

Well might Sundorne ask himself, “ Is it I?” 

The recluse, whose relations to all men have been hostile, 
to all women contemptuous, one whose destiny has stood 
between him and the least, the commonest enjoyments of 
life, who has lived to smite and be smitten. 

Sitting here, in a fair haven, with a strange and beauti- 
ful ministrant at his hand, one who has left all to follow 
him, the one presence with power to give him the exceed- 
ing happiness for which he craved, soul and strength ; that 
which is but a name to all but a few, and to most of these 
a dream only — delight divine, rare as his own genius, but 
which it was not meet that he, Sundorne, should go down 
to the grave without enjoying. 

An intellectual outlaw, the first wave of reaction, under 
the dawn of public favor, had done no more than convert 
his aggressive hatred of society into unrespectful indiffer- 
ence. Revolutions are not made with rose-water. His 
accursed lot could not be reversed without martyrs. A 
maroon, his house of life must be built with driftwood 
from another’s wreck. An innocent sacrifice must be buried 
in the foundations. 

And though they two were never to go forth to meet 
their fellows hand in hand, proudly — though forced to 
keep apart, branded and ostracized — could it touch him at 
this point, any more than one who by daring and endur- 
ance has reached a high mountain top can be hurt by boys 
hurling stones at the foot ? Poor souls, who would envy 
him in their heart of hearts, could they but know ! 

He counts himself freer in his banishment than those 
bound to the treadmill of convention, unaware of their 
slavery. This sorry tenement shall be his Armida’s palace 
awhile, these few roods of earth his enchanted garden. 


174 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


What did he want with the chatter of society ? He needed 
society, as an association to serve him, as he needed horses 
for traction and oxen for food ; but his thoughts, he knew 
of old, were better company. 

He had been his own world ; but what a stern and bitter 
place it was, where the elements were harsh, and all the 
days were dark, and he must take stones for bread, he 
whose very fasting powers and tenacious endurance were 
the counterpart of a more than common force of human 
desire, a restless yearning imagination, a mighty and tyran- 
nical Will. 

He drew her nearer to him and kissed her lingeringly — 
their first kiss, since that night in the garden. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

ECLIPSE. 

At eight o’clock one Sunday night. Dr. Blake, returning 
from his rounds, found that his wife had taken the bairns 
to evening church. He mechanically ate the dinner pre- 
pared for him, and then took up a newspaper to try and 
recruit his mind, tired and worried as he felt, before facing 
the trouble upstairs. He shrank from it cowardly. He 
was tough and obtuse ; neither to the joys nor the griefs 
of life — the sentimental ones — was he keenly alive, but 
misfortune had found out the vulnerable place in his armor, 
and shot there. 

Antigone’s words, hard-sounding, if we judge by our 
heads, are the passionate cry of affection, hearts know. To 
lose wife or child would afflict the excellent doctor ; but 
that he might find a new partner of his bed and board, 
that new children may be born to him, is a stubborn fact. 
There was a time when he had neither. 

Nor had his fancy for Bertha outlived the conviction of 
her indifference. He was mainly glad he had not made 
that foolish match. His marriage had been advantageous 
in every sense. But his feeling for his brother was of older, 
stronger growth. Wilfrid had been the wine of his life ; at 
school, at home, and throughout the pecuniary tribulations 
that had hampered their careers at the outset. Robert 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


75 


had grown up in an unconscious spiritual dependence on 
his elder’s quicker insight and vivacity. Then Wilfrid’s 
specific talent and prominent success had proved the 
making of the family, pensioned the mother, portioned the 
daughters, giving Robert’s struggling practice an impor- 
tant lift. And now' that Carroll’s relations were no longer 
dependent on his material assistance, his increasing cele- 
brity gave brilliancy and point to their lives. Robert, 
though months might pass and they two not meet, yet 
prized his existence like the magic Peau de Chagrin, a 
thing which, if it shrank, his own must shrink and dwindle 
too. That Wilfrid should arise from his present illness the 
same man as before was barely to be expected. What 
then ? Robert’s sluggish imagination became active under 
the prick of countless fears, and lugubrious of hue as when 
we wake in the night. Would he have to witness his slow 
but premature decay, the deterioration of those cherished 
qualities, personal and mental, under the concurrent pres- 
sure of a moral wound and the constitutional breakdown 
it had, as Robert could not deny, merely precipitated, yet 
remaining an incalculable hindrance to perfect recovery ? 
“ Life, thou art hideous,” was the sum of the physician’s 
thoughts to-night. 

He ceased pretending to read the article on Irish politics, 
and rang the bell. 

“ Send up to ask Miss Norton to come down,” he said, 
“ when she can.” 

Many days ago now Bertha had called to ascertain if 
she could be of any use. Her services had proved only 
too acceptable, and she had scarcely left the house since. 

“ Well ? ” he said inquiringly, as she answered the sum- 
mons. It was mainly a valuable help in the troublesome 
task of nursing his brother that her former lover saw in her 
now. 

“ Oh, I cannot tell,” said Bertha. “ All day long I have 
felt so disheartened.” 

She sank into a chair in an attitude of profound depres- 
sion. Her voice was hoarse with fatigue ; she had watched 
for two nights and not slept by day ; her colorless cheeks, 
sunken, smarting eyes, and trembling hands showed she 
was at the end of her physical resources. 

“ It is either,” she said, “ that those paroxysms of pain 
recur, when I am convinced that if he had anything within 


176 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


reach that would serve he would take it to make an end ; 
or in the intervals his mind is ridden by the trouble of 
what has happened, and the conviction that if he gets up 
again it will be crippled and incapacitated for the rest of 
his life. He is unlike himself — I cannot tell you what I 
fear.” 

“ I know,” said Robert gloomily. “ But reassure yourself, 
it will not be that. Or if so,” he let fall to himself, “ that 
would be the beginning of the end.” 

This was sorry comfort to Bertha’s spirits. 

“ You are tired out, I can see,” he said. You must 
let the nurse sit up to night.” 

He cannot bear the sight of her. He is worse since 
she came.” 

“ Nonsense. Why, she is one of the best that I know.” 

“ Well, her presence in the room irritates him ; it pre- 
vents him from sleeping.” 

“ But what else is to be done ? For you would be of no 
use,” he said plainly. “ One blunders when one gets 
beyond a certain point of fatigue. I should be no better. 
It is useless to fight nature so. Go to bed instantly, Ber- 
tha. I will see things made as comfortable for him as 
possible.” 

She obeyed. Robert’s thoughts reverted unwillingly to 
a day, years ago, when his brother, through some exposure 
on a country tour, had been taken alarmingly ill ; and for 
a week there was grave danger, averted, however, thanks 
to Marcia, who never left him, never needed to count the 
nights she sacrificed, always composed and capable j her 
indefatigable care the real charm needed to coax back 
health and strength to the least tractable of patients. It 
was tedious work, and Dr. Blake feared she would break 
down. But, the danger past, she slept for thirty-six hours, 
and then rose perfectly fresh. Dr. Blake had then and 
there been converted to the circle of her admirers. She 
was a woman for a crisis ; she feared nothing, flinched from 
nothing. His heart cursed her in proportion now. 

Poor Robert was feeling half stupified with such un- 
wonted and protracted painful mental tension. The servant 
had been standing there some moments with a card, when 
he looked up unintelligently. 

“ A gentleman wants to see you, sir.” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


177 


“ Tell him I cannot go out again anywhere to-night/^ 
said the doctor testily. Some fussy lady-patient sent for 
him, no doubt. 

“ He wished me to give you this card, sir.” 

Dr. Blake took it and read the name of Austin Day. 

“ Her father ! Won’t see him. Out upon the whole 
pack of them ! ” said the natural man in him. But that 
would not do. Austin Day was not guilty ; his daughter’s 
flight had probably shocked him as much as any one. 

“ Show him in,” he said. 

Austin Day, unchanged all these years, stood before him. 
It was a painful moment for the visitor ; yet Dr. Blake was 
the awkward one of the two. He felt impregnably cold, 
distant, monosyllabic. He knew not his man. Austin Day 
could split an iceblock like a fine needle. He had a pass- 
key to the weak parts of ordinary folk. 

“ Dr. Blake,” he said, with simple dignity, “ I am get- 
ting an old man ; I have known trouble ; but the calamity 
that has befallen your house and mine is a heavier afflic- 
tion than I could have believed yet to be in store for me.” 

Dr. Blake shifted his position uneasily. The insinuating 
earnest of Austin Day’s manner moved him in spite of him- 
self. A terrible thing, truly, for the old man. Enough to 
kill him. All the world crying shame upon his daughter. 

He was loth to respond cordially ; yet could not bring 
himself to reply with a rebuff. So he said nothing. 

“ Is it true that your brother is still dangerously ill ? ” 
asked Austin Day, after a short pause. 

“ There is not, nor has been, in my opinion, any danger 
for his life.” 

“ Do you fear permanently injurious consequences ” 

Robert was not going to admit that. “ He has been out 
of health for six months, I am persuaded ; and a variety 
of accidents, in addition to the shock you speak of, have 
contributed to bring about an attack as complicated in its 
nature as it has been severe. It will leave him incapaci- 
tated for some while ; but he is still young, and will 
recover — is already recovering.” 

Austin Day’s relief was immense. For wild reports 
were flying about ; and to his certain knowledge a smart 
newspaper correspondent had got Carroll’s obituary notice 
in type, with all the particulars of his last illness. 

“ Is he himself? ” he asked. 

X2 


178 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS, 


“ Not always.” 

“ Has he spoken of what has passed ? ” 

“ He has alluded to it.” 

“ And in what spirit ? ” asked Austin Day, who saw he 
could get anything he wanted out of this man. 

“ With a biter derision quite foreign to his disposition. 
His memory, otherwise clouded, has never failed him 
there.” 

“ When he gets well what will you do with him ? ” 

“ I shall take him out of England, out of Europe,” said 
Dr. Blake doggedly. “ Across the Atlantic, if he will 
go.” 

“ You ? And your practice ? ” inquired Austin Day, in 
surprise. 

“ My patients must accept my partner’s services, or 
change their physician.” 

“ And your family? ” 

“ Whll cheerfully make the sacrifice.” 

Which meant merely that wry faces would be unavail- 

ing- 

“ Wilfrid’s state, when he gets out again,” resumed the 
doctor, may still be critical, and must totally unfit him 
for work for some time. He must travel — have change — 
I don’t say he will be the happier, or even the better for it 
— but it will stop him from getting worse, help him to get 
on till we have put time — a year’s time at least — between 
him and now.” He paused constrainedly, then added 
hurriedly, “ He is not happily constituted ; his tempera- 
ment is too nervous ; things we take no note of are torture 
to him. Only those who live with them know.” His eyes 
avoided Austin Day’s sharp glance, and he concluded ora- 
cularly, “ We shall see.” 

“ Does he ever ask for his children? ” 

“ He will not even hear them named,” said Dr. Blake. 
“ You would say they were so bound up with her in his 
mind that her estrangement has estranged him from them 
as though they were involved in her step, and you might 
as well try to do him good by showing him a lock of her 
hair as by recalling their existence to him. It will be 
otherwise when he is well. But for the present I think 
they should remain where they are — with you.” 

“ It is my desire, if you will allow it,” said Austin Day, 
“ and ” “ Marcia’s ” he was going to say, but stopped. 

You have heard from your daughter ? ” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


79 


“ Yes. She writes from France — near Cherbourg.” 

“ How — how could she do this ? ” blurted out Dr. Blake 
violently, unable to hold in. Austin Day could not 
answer him. He had a peculiar tenderness for Wilfrid. He 
had had a son who had not lived to grow up ; his fancy 
had made Carroll fill the place, and this paternal fondness 
for the younger man was heightened in him by an artist’s 
sympatliy for a comrade of the true metal. He was paying 
the penalty at this moment of his frailty of long ago. Re- 
vengeful Nature leaves the priest nowhere. She keeps the 
stone in her pocket twenty, thirty years, to fling it at last. 
Dr. Blake blundered on vigorously. 

She — high principled as we thought her — proud — and 
fond. No woman could serve a man so well whom she 
did not love. What devilry has that snake Sundorne 

played off on her to bring her to it? Why the must 

he come to destroy my brother’s happiness with her and 
hers with him ? ” 

“ I have always believed,” said Austin Day presently, 
“ that my daughter was happy in her home. But we must 
remember that had it been otherwise we should never 
have known it. She was a woman to keep her trials to 
herself.” 

Dr. Blake, in glum silence, tapped the ground im- 
patiently with his foot. 

“ No, she was not happy, or this could never come to 
pass,” mused her father aloud — “ (far be it from me 
to excuse her. Dr. Blake) — never — not even for Sun- 
dorne ” 

“ Sundorne ! ’’ echoed Robert, in whom the name 
inspired no jot of sentimental, fanatical awe or reverence ; 
“ I could shoot him like a hawk if I had a chance, for his 
atrocious treachery. It will be repaid if there is justice 
in heaven.” 

“ It will,” said Austin Day, thinking to himself of Time’s 
tardy sure revenge, as Robert railed on. 

“ Dr. Blake,” he said sadly but collectedly, when Wilfrid’s 
brother had let off the worst of his spleen, “ Sundorne, and 
the motives that sway him, are entirely beyond my know- 
ledge ” (“ and your comprehension,” he added mentally). 
“ There is one question I desire to ask.” 

Dr. Blake listened reluctantly ; his guest’s compelling 
manner made him say and do the opposite to what he 
intended. 


i8o 


FAMOUS OR IMF. I MO US. 


“ What course do you suppose that your brother will 
take in the matter ? ” 

“ Seek a release from his engagements to your daughter/’ 
replied Dr. Blake unhesitatingly. “ You are thinking of 
the children. The house at Hampstead is shut up. We 
have our hands full here. As I said, I see no objection to 
their remaining with you until matters are settled.” 

Austin Day took leave and returned to Surrey Lodge, 
his spirits prodigiously lightened by his interview. He 
had got his medical certificate that Wilfrid was recovering. 
Had anything happened to him, just at this crisis, it would 
have been one of those cruel cuts of Fate, which it would 
tax the philosophy even of an Austin Day to get over. 
The world would have laid Carroll’s death at Marcia’s door, 
without weighing the real amount of her responsibility. 
His mind reverted now to his daughter’s last letter. Its 
tone was not that of a suppliant for forgiveness. She was 
always strong, but with Sundorne in the background she 
seemed to dwell in an impregnable fortress, out of reach 
of Jove’s thunderbolts, how much more of indignant 
fatherly reproaches ! He was half afraid of her, and he had 
yet to make the acquaintance of Sundorne, the private 
individual as he partly surmised. 

Directly his visitor had departed. Dr. Blake began to 
wonder angrily at his own civility and forbearance 

“ The insinuating rascal ! He has forgiven her half 
already.” And the old story about Marcia’s mother was 
recalled ; he had found it convenient to forget it since she 
became his relation. He breathed an unuttered curse on 
the whole family tree, and went upstairs to his brother. 

At his signal Wilfrid’s mortal enemy, the nurse, withdrew. 
Wilfrid asked for Bertha. 

“ I have ordered her to go to bed. She will be knocked 
up.” 

Wilfrid made a gesture of annoyance and despair. 
‘‘ That means the Ghoul, to-night,” he said — his disrespect- 
ful term for the professional attendant. 

“ If you like I’ll sit up with you,” said Robert heroically. 

‘‘ No, thanks, you’ll be poisoning your patients to- 
morrow by mistake. I don’t want their blood on my 
head.” 

Dr. Blake remained with him until he seemed inclined 
to dose, then gave directions to the nurse and went to bed. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


i8i 

Bertha was the first to come into the room the next 
morning. 

Wilfrid lay still, with closed eyes ; he had scarcely 
changed his position for some hours. The nurse had made 
sure he was sleeping — no discredit to her, he could counter- 
feit well — and allowed herself a timely nap, knowing she 
would wake at the least stir of the invalid. 

The invalid, perfectly aware of this also, forced himself 
to keep rigidly still, though his limbs ached rackingly. 
The official observation of this ministering angel irked 
him like a probe in a wound ; against her skilful but self- 
important attentions he would have spent his last breath 
in rebelling, and he had a positive satisfaction in deceiving 
her. But with insomnia and discomfort he was feeling 
half mad when Bertha came in ; he heard the nurse 
assuring her he had had a “ good night,” and that by the 
doctor’s orders she had refused him the narcotic that had 
been too freely resorted to of late, and was only to be 
used at the last extremity. 

The instant she had left the room he beckoned the relief 
guard to his side. 

“I have not slept a wink, Bertha,” he said. “You 
must give me the opium now, when she is out of the way. 
Make haste ! ” 

Bertha looked at him a moment and understood. 

“ Very well,” she said. “ I will go and send her to bed 
and bring it you then. Can you wait a moment? ” 

“ Yes, yes,” he said feverishly. He was parched with 
thirst, but with morbid invalid’s perversity would rather 
suffer than ask the nurse for what he wanted. He let 
Bertha serve him ; there was a soothing gentleness in her 
movements only personal feeling can impart. She could 
not have been thus with the first comer. It calmed him, 
and ere she left the room on her errand he was on the 
verge of slumber. 

An hour later he awoke, and saw Bertha sitting there 
with her sewing. 

“ That opium made me sleep famously,” he said. 

Bertha smiled ; for the elixir she had poured out he had 
slept without tasting. 

Neither Robert nor Bertha had Marcia’s transcendental 
capacity for taking pains in the common things of life ; 
but their affection made their services more agreeable, and 


i 82 


FAMOUS OR ///FAMOUS, 


thus more efficient than those of a stranger hand, to the 
morbid susceptibility of their patient. And Wilfrid un- 
thinkingly accepted every sacrifice made for him — though 
for the feeling that prompted it he could make no return — 
because of his own sore need, driving him to snatch at the 
smallest alleviations. That Robert should neglect and 
injure his practice, and Bertha her prospects by throwing 
over her engagement at the Royal, were to him shadowy 
considerations. An hour’s sleep, timely respite from pain, 
from thirst, from sickness — these were the only realities. 
For misfortune is like a barbarous conqueror who delights 
in torturing the wounded. 


CHAPTER XV. 

CONTRARY MOTIONS. 

Although the world of a day when all scandals are public 
property is not easily startled, when the truth about Sun- 
dorne and Carroll’s wife became known, it stirred society 
almost as if the personages concerned had been of blood 
royal. There reigned a brief but almost passionate curiosity. 
An evil deed rarely fails to engender a hundred calumnies. 
Human nature, in a fit of wild justice, hangs everybody. 
Perhaps people felt that Sundorne was past hanging; he 
was so hardened to unmitigated abuse that he felt its very 
worst no longer ; but in the retributive crusade Wilfrid 
was not spared. He had been negligent, wilfully blind, 
very probably didn’t care, said the wisdom of the streets. 
Why, for those who believed in the affair with Verena, 
here was the missing proof. Had there been nothing in 
that gossip, Marcia would never thus have placed herself 
ouside the pale of society where she had been so well 
received. 

Sundorne’s adherents held their tongues, not venturing 
to utter what they thought ; that Sundorne’s actions were, 
as such, unimpeachable. So a more candid-spoken Pon- 
tiff of old, cited to sue his favorite artist for manslaughter, 
returned answer that such masters in their profession as 
that should not be subject to the laws. 


famous or infamous. 


183 


There was another section of society who lived under 
the firm impression that all actors’ marriages were more or 
less of a farce; one party or the other generally eloping 
within a few years. Others, again, first heard of the fact 
when, some months after, the divorce was pronounced. 

A few for a while refused to go to see Sundorne’s plays 
acted, though they did not carry it so far as to banish them 
from their tables, and soon gave up punishing themselves 
for his offence. Fi'aiicesca was drawing larger audiences 
than ever, and his new or entirely re-written drama of 
Wentworth^ announced to follow in due course at the 
same theatre, was already the theme of so much curiosity 
that it had been described in advance by the lively fancy 
of half a dozen reporters. Sundorne’s star was in the as- 
cendant ; the victor every way, he drew the crowd after. 
His moral delinquency could not cancel an already assured 
artistic success. 

Whilst Carroll was under a temporary, some whispered 
a permanent, cloud. The most favored public performer 
cannot afford to drop out of sight. In no time he will find 
himself superseded, disprized, forgotten. An American 
actor of talent came over, and, well launched by Crowe, 
became the rage. He appeared in King Rupert and other 
of Carroll’s parts, and for a change, or contradiction’s sake, 
critics pronounced his impersonations superior. Carroll’s 
press friends retorted that there was no comparison ; but 
the proof they needed to establish that could not be ad- 
vanced. Carroll was on the shelf ; people now discovered 
that he had been “ going off” for some time ; and every 
day the old favorite slipped more and more out of public 
consideration and public ken. 

Dr. Blake was as good as his word. No sooner was his 
brother in a condition to travel than he snatched him a 
thousand miles away, to another hemisphere, hoping great 
things from the sea voyage in a sailing vessel. For him- 
self, there is satisfaction to the practical mind in combining 
fraternal service with personal advantage. But for this 
emergency he would never have gratified his old-standing 
fancy to cross the Atlantic. 

Bertha had re-entered on a round of professional engage- 
ments. Dr. Blake, before starting, came to wish her good- 
bye and tha ik her for her timely assistance during Wilfrid’s 
illness. 


184 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


“ 1 am going to ask you a favor in return,” she said. 
“ That you will write now and then and tell me everything 
about yourselves.” 

About his brother. He promised readily. It seemed 
to him quite natural that Bertha — that any one — should 
feel as keenly anxious as himself concerning the welfare of 
that individual. Mrs. Robert Blake was not. A fine in- 
stance of the chartered selfishness of married folk, she was 
wrapped up in the earthly interests of Robert Blake, wife, 
and children, as in an india-rubber cloak. 

She wrote to him of the misdeeds of the nursery gover- 
ness, Trotty’s wonderful proficiency on the piano, the new 
cook, the crack in the dining-room ceiling, the builder’s 
iniquitous bill, the patients that wouldn’t be doctored by 
his partner, and lugubrious prophecies of the ruinous con- 
sequences to his practice if he absented himself too long. 
For propriety’s sake she would add a formal inquiry after 
his companion, of whose claims she was naturally impa- 
tient when they came to depriving her of her spouse. 

Dr. Blake, who felt he could not fill his letter back with 
the ups and downs of his hopes and fears for his beloved 
patient, proved a bad home correspondent ; there was so 
little else he felt the need of saying. But he wrote his 
wife faithful reports of the weather, of the splendid accom- 
modation on board ship, the hotels and expenses in New 
York. Then, his duty done, he sat down to write to 
Bertha of what he cared to tell and she to hear ; he could 
not have written it to an indifferent person. 

“ So many leagues upon the sea have enabled him who 
embarked as an invalid to step on shore as a convalescent.'’ 
So ran his first missive. “ We get on swimmingly. He is 
at present metamorphosed into the most tractable of 
charges ; does or leaves undone just what I and reason 
tell him is necessary. He chafes under his loss of strength, 
but knows that from me he can’t conceal it, so is not 
tempted to try. Besides, he has such a lively dread of a 
return of what he has recently undergone, the relapse that 
the least imprudence would infallibly occasion, that it acts 
as an efficient deterrent.” 

Bertha was happier after the receipt of that letter. She 
wrote back with such spontaneous, responsive interest that 
Dr. Blake was driven to pour out his cogitations to her 
again and again. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 185 

Then there came a long lapse. At last Bertha wrote for 
news, and got her report as follows : 

“ Yes, I am satisfied tliat we are three months ahead in 
the improvement way. He is fast losing the appearance 
and the habits of an invalid. Physically, he is perhaps as 
well as a man could be with a no longer distance of time 
between him and such an illness. His malady now is 
indifference — deadness of mind. He seems outside life ; 
and though strong enough to take all the usual sight-seeing 
excursions with me, his participation in what interests 
others is mechanical or feigned. He goes through the 
forms of life, as too many people go to church, from 
habit, or for appearance’s sake. What is worse, you would 
sometimes say that Marcia’s treachery had warped his 
moral sense, impaired the sanity of his judgment. His 
neglect of, his aversion to, his children is one proof. I 
have lectured him about it — told him it is wrong and un- 
natural. But on this point he is absolutely insensible. He 
has the greatest repugnance to the idea of seeing them. 
He says they are safe and well cared for under Austin 
Day’s honorable roof, but would know no more of them 
than he must. He is simply insane on this head ; one 
among other signs that he is not yet cured. 

“ He never talks about resuming his professional work ; 
and I religiously hold my tongue, knowing that if he tried 
he would knock up in a week. Yet I should be glad to see 
his interest revive. We go to the theatre ; he criticizes 
what goes on, but it stirs no personal sentiment in him. 
This strange apathy is to my mind of such inauspicious 
omen for the future that my heart sometimes sinks into my 
boots, in spite of all the hopeful signs I have mentioned.” 

And Bertha wrote back on the spot to encourage him, 
and remind him that till Wilfrid’s system was thoroughly 
restored the ground for his mental renovation, so to speak, 
would not be ready. 

“ Wait,” she concluded confidently. “ Once an artist, 
always an artist.” 

On the earliest possible date after the divorce was 
pronounced, Marcia and Sundorne were legally united on 
English soil, returning at once to their place of voluntary 
exile. 

The children meanwhile sported about Austin Day’s 
house like sunbeams. He was fond of them and they of 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


1 86 

him. Fortunately they were still too young to comprehend 
the perplexities of their position ; their welfare was cared 
for by the nurse, treasure of discretion, trained by Marcia. 

One day, the master of the house had been up to town 
as usual ; returning towards evening he found Surrey Lodge 
in commotion. Nurse and charges had gone for their 
morning walk and never reappeared. Inquiries, scouts sent 
after them since, had found no trace. There was a terrible 
scare. They had been bodily si)irited away ; and conjec- 
ture ran wild on gypsies, miscreants, the river. Austin Day 
looked grave. He suspected another clue to the matter. 

That very evening he received a telegram from Marcia. 

“ When this reaches you my children will be with me. 

I do not ])art with them except on compulsion.” 

Her audacity fairly startled him. What a coil was here ! 
With Wilfrid across the Atlantic he, the grandfather, would 
be held responsible, perhaps suspected of conniving at his 
daughter’s proceeding. 

A long laid plot and carefully concealed conspiracy — he 
saw it all now — a secret understanding from the first be- 
tween Marcia and the nurse. Stupid of him to have been 
hoodwinked thus. Marcia had waited till her position 
was legally sanctioned before making this attempt to see 
her offspring. In his heart he could not violently condemn 
what was only the desperate move of a mother ; but it 
puzzled him that his daughter, with her strong sense, should 
have made a venture so fantastic and so futile. The chil- 
dren would be reclaimed, and she would have to give them 
up. He did his duty, which was to communicate the facts 
to Dr. Blake. Meanwhile he would see Marcia, and try 
and induce her to let the boy and girl return with him. 
He telegraphed to her to announce his arrival, and started 
by the next boat. 

As the packet steamed into the harbor there was a 
figure which his sharp sight, before he was near enough, 
for recognition, had instinctively singled out from the crowd 
on the landing-stage ; Triton among the minnows, though 
neither tall nor commanding of stature — Sundorne himself. 

The man who had mortally injured him, the author of 
his daughter’s disgrace, dared to go beforehand to meet 
him thus ! It rekindled his righteous indignation against 
the disturber, the destroyer of her domestic peace, appro- 
priating the love unlawfully won, at the price of her social 


FAMOUS OF /^FAMOUS. 187 

consideration. He felt a father’s right to treat him like 
the culprit that he was. 

But a voice from the dead spoko : “ Once you stood 
where he stood. When the laws of society, the conventions 
of morality, the dictates of conscience, stood between you 
and your heart’s desire, did they stay you ? Did you re- 
frain from accepting the love that was yours, wrongfully, 
but still yours ? From that day you were disqualified to 
cast a stone.” 

Sundorne looked almost imposing ; he seemed more 
erect ; some feature in his aspect made Austin Day think of 
the demoniacal authority of Napoleon, enslaving subjects, 
friends, enemies, victims alike ; drawing the world of the 
weaker fry into the net of his superior intelligence. It was 
not every day that Marcia’s father met his match. He 
would have entrenched himself behind a distant, dignified 
formality as a defence. It fell to pieces in the light of 
Sundorne’s greater sincerity and strength. 

“ Sir,” said the latter, with something of the conde- 
cension of a Caliph who stoops to greet a lesser dignitary. 
“ My house is within an hour’s drive. I have a carriage 
here for you.” 

Austin Day must acquiesce in the enforced tHe-d-tHe. 
Every moment the old campaigner felt more uncomfortably 
the ascendency of his enemy ; the same that had beguiled 
his daughter. For once he was powerless. The insinuating 
charm of the genial critic, the sympathetic worldling, had 
never had more influence on this personage than the pleas- 
ing strains of a guitar. 

“ You come,” said Sundorne as they drove, “ to see, not 
me, but your daughter. Understand, then, that for our 
joint lives you cannot separate us ; nor even think of us 
apart. The light is not more a part of the day, the wings 
are not more part of the bird, than Marcia is part of me.” 

But underneath he seemed to be saying : 

“ This once, I, Sundorne, consent to unbend to you, 
Marcia’s father. Your right to certain explanations I choose 
not to disregard. Acknowledge the concession.” 

Austin Day preserved a discreet silence. Sundorne 
resumed abruptly : 

“ Fate plays cruel tricks with the lives of all of us. It 
shapes the way for that which is to come to pass ; and 
from the first moment that I met your daughter, found 


i88 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


what the world elsewhere did not contain for me — there 
could be no other end.” 

“ Plague take his consummate impudence ! ” thought the 
older man, struck dumb by the arrogance of the address. 
He was angry too, and would fain have opened fire, but 
his guns were spiked. 

“ You are the first guest who has come under our roof. 
None can be our guest, our friend, who does not recognize 
our union, see in our partnership its own vindication, and 
honor it as it merits.” 

And the listener’s mouth was sealed ; the sexagenarian 
like a shamed schoolboy, confronted with the man who 
had wronged him, and Sundorne knew it. Memory mocked 
the father’s honest and indignant impulses, saying : “ Did 
compunction stay you ? What is Marcia but the living em- 
bodiment of your revolt against the laws of God and man ? ” 

“ I say nothing,” began Sundorne presently, “ of her 
last act ; that which brings you here. It is of the sort that 
are justified by the issue, and my belief is that she knows 
best.” 

Austin Day was not sorry when they arrived at their 
journey’s end. He was uneasy in the apologetic attitude 
to which he felt reduced, and which would have seemed 
more becoming for the other. 

Marcia, in the sitting-room with the children, was wait- 
ing to receive him. Their delight at being with her again 
knew no bounds ; and the sight of them together struck 
Austin Day with a sense of a tie so much stronger than 
any which social laws can create, that it might even now 
stultify the action of those who would put them apart. 
Marcia was moved at the present meeting, but controlled 
all expression of feeling. Austin Day looked round him, 
silent, observant. Marcia had been an ideal mother to 
her little ones ; their passionate, tenacious attachment to 
her was the counterpart of her own feeling. He could not 
grudge her this brief glimpse of them. 

Sundorne had withdrawn, and the children, at a word 
from their mother, ran into the garden. Austin Day was 
baffled by her self-possession and quiet assurance. She 
began at once about the boy and girl. 

“ I intended it from the first,” she told him, “ though I 
scarcely ventured to hope it would prove so easy. The 
nurse — ^you do not know it — is my slave. She has written 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


189 


to me every day. They have not ailed the least thing but 
I have known it. Had one of them been ill I should have 
come ; and you would not have kept me away. 

“ I arranged this with her long ago, sent her money and 
directions. Only I waited till ” 

“You waited till you were Arthur Sundorne’s wife,” he 
let fall involuntarily, as she paused. 

“ Then I gave the signal, and counted the moments till 
I saw them again.” 

“ And pray,” said Austin Day, “ what do you hope to 
gain by it? It was a harebrained proceeding, Marcia. 
Can you suppose for an instant that they will be allowed 
to remain in your hands ? ” 

“ Where else ? ” she said boldly. “ A cold home they 
will get, except with me ; half repudiated, wholly hated. 
Even with you, who love them, can they possibly be cared 
for so well as by me? You cannot look me in the face 
and say so.” 

“ Have you thought of their future ? ” he asked her. 

“ Loss of the world’s consideration, by growing up under 
my roof? I know that in the main they will not even 
there be losers, as you will see, if I am allowed the test. 

“ Their father avoids them, if he does not hate them. 
And why ? Because they are mine. Neither to you nor 
another shall I resign them voluntarily. Let those who 
have power to use legal compulsion do so if they think 
fit.” 

“ And Sundorne ? ” 

“ Sundorne loves me, and cares for them because they 
are dear to me. Where are the children likely to have the 
best chance of happiness ? Here, or with one who must 
hate what is mine ? ” 

She pointed towards the study, saying : 

“ He sits there and works most of the day. I divide 
my time between him and them. He wants my constant 
help. We are coming back to England immediately, never 
to leave it again, I hope. The rehearsals of IVeniworth 
begin next week ; and he is already busy with something 
else in a new and lighter vein — a composition of years ago. 
It is a secret, but I will tell you about it.” 

And as she told him Austin Day’s countenance lit up 
with instinctive, keen artist’s interest. Listening, he forgot 
for a few moments the domestic imbroglio in which he was 
involved. 


190 


FA MO C/S OF INFAMOUS. 


That evening, as Sundorne happened to be in a commu- 
nicative mood, nothing was talked of but his last finished 
drama and that just alluded to, which together were to 
confound those who accused him of being incapable of 
drawing inspiration from English themes. 

Austin Day left the next morning, furtively disconcerted. 
He had come to curse ; and remained — not to bless, as- 
suredly, but to incline imperceptibly towards an attitude 
of neutrality. He had condemned the wrong, and would 
condemn it again ; but he ceased to be always thinking 
about it. The memory of Wilfrid, already paling under 
his long absence, was cast further into the shadow by the 
impression of this visit. 

As for the children, it was for their lawful guardian to 
act, or depute him to act, in the matter. Personally he 
declined the responsibility of further interference now. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

ASHORE AND AFLOAT. 

Great was the stir in a certain small English country town 
when it was rumored that the old manor house of Arden, 
three miles off, had found a purchaser ; greater still when 
it transpired that it had been bought for Sundorne. 

The fancy price put on it by the owner — thanks to which 
it had stood empty for ten years — had proved no deterrent. 
It suited his wants exactly ; the great man was a rich man 
now ; and that first summer morning, when he and Marcia 
set foot in their future domain (she had singled out the 
advertisement as worth following up, from among a hun- 
dred that to him seemed all alike unmeaning jargon), their 
mutual feeling was : “ This is the spot we have been search- 
ing for, henceforward our house and home.” 

Seclusion or society, you might live there and take your 
choice. The high road passed near, the railway at no 
great distance, an hour’s drive took you into Avenport, one 
of the largest towns in the Kingdom. 

Yet Arden was a place of peace, you felt at first sight ol 
it. A picturesque, grey stone, two-storied country house 
with steep sloping roof and a walled garden just visible 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 191 

between two fine cedars, across a shady lawn from the 
road. The grounds were large enough to afford exercise 
and variety of scene to a restless inmate, and dispense with 
the necessity to go out of them, if yoii would rather not. 
The long stretch of old-fashioned flower-garden was 
screened from the highway by a little wood ; a mere grove 
of forest trees, with an undergrowth of hawthorn and ma- 
ple, carpeted with moss and ferns ; a pleasant wilderness of 
thickets intersected by grass-grown footpaths ; a haunt of 
singing-birds. A tiny hamlet adjoining the out-buildings of 
the manor clustered round an ivy-mantled, disused little 
church, with a rustic, thorn-hedged graveyard attached, 
bounded on one side by the Manor garden wall. 

The installation of the new owners took place so quietly 
that they were well at home there before the neighbors, 
generally, had heard of their arrival. It came out through 
the tradespeople, whose keen commercial instincts scented 
good clients ' they had no call to trouble their heads about 
the irregular nature of Sundorne’s domestic arrangements 
any more than he his with their family secrets. Whatever 
others mights think of Marcia, butchers, bakers, salesmen, 
and mechanics regarded her with unqualified respect, as a 
customer of the right sort ; ready to pay liberally for good 
service, but knowing good from bad, and not to be im- 
posed on by scamping. 

And comparisons, favorable to Sundorne’s wife, were 
drawn between her and Lady Fanfarron’s anyhow expen- 
diture — who let servants waste and tradesmen cheat, and 
yet never had things well done — and the Davenport Browns 
whose idea of a fair price was the least price the employed 
could be induced to take. 

Of the bustle and discomfort inseparable from settling 
down under a new roof-tree, Sundorne was suffered to feel 
nothing. Whatever irked him as amiss he mentioned to 
Marcia and it righted itself mysteriously. From a drain- 
pipe to a shirt-button ; the mechanism of a fire-engine to 
the blacking of the children’s boots, no matter was too 
trivial or ungrateful to engage her attention, or so beyond 
the range of her knowledge, but she was found to have 
mastered the details sufficiently to superintend it. No 
child’s play, gentlemen. Not a particle of her strength 
and energy, her trained and active intelligence and multi- 
form culture, but here was call, clamor, for its full its 


192 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


severingly taxing employ. But for her each task was 
glorified, the menial ennobled, the distasteful sweetened — 
the more onerous, the more precious — the tedious, tiring, 
perplexing were cherished as an artist cherishes every 
touch that contributes to the perfecting of his work. 

Her work was the building up of Sundorne’s happiness 
and prosperity. And every day she rose to the inspiring 
knowledge of the successful fruit of her labors. There 
were moments when, as she saw on his face, he reckoned 
a whole lifetime of gloom and conflict, of deadening 
obstruction, sordid privation, and infinite disappointment 
weighed down in the balance against the vivid satisfaction 
of his life now from day to day ; the ideal life — for him the 
awakening of forgotten dreams, as it were, to miraculous 
fulfilment. 

The school of adversity, like other schools, turns out 
widely different scholars. It had never inclined Sundorne 
to be thankful for small mercies. It was rather as if he 
had put away and been saving up all his soul’s cravings 
for sympathy and spiritual fellowship and glowing recog- 
nition, all his human longings for ease and delight — con- 
strained them to wait, like hounds in a kennel. The 
capacities of a weaker temper might have flagged or per- 
ished under starvation. His, unfed, grew fiercer, stronger, 
for the discipline ; and now that their hour had come, 
they started forth, savage in their strength, adroit in its 
exercise. In this first exchange of purgatory for paradise 
it seemed to him that hitherto his mental faculties had 
never worked but through some hampering medium. Far 
from resting on his labors, he despised them, reaching on 
to new and more ambitious schemes than heretofore. 

But the master-mind is not above its slave in its supe- 
riority to petty worries. The fable of the Princess and 
the Peas is very frequently exemplified in the princes of 
intellect. A beautiful house, an establishment such as 
Sundorne liked, the exercise of a large and elastic hospi-^ 
tality, bring cares and torments sufficient to n)ar such a 
man’s enjoyment of his relatively great possessions. The 
minor ones fall naturally to the woman ; but others re- 
quire a knowledge of business, a personal weight, a bold- 
ness to face disagreeables, that devolve them as a rule on 
the householder. 


FA MO c/s OF INFAMOUS. 


193 


Sundorne, all impatience and fantasies in such matters, 
was one to squander in thoughtless expenditure the largest 
substance, as infallibly as of yore he had outrun his meagre 
annuity. But he was fastidious, and would never have 
entrusted the management of affairs to the weaker vessel 
had not Marcia combined masculine judgment and accu- 
racy with the tact of a woman. 

He had no sensitive self-sufficiency to humor, yet she 
never snatched a burden from his shoulders officiously. 
Of his own accord he shifted it, and she disposed of it 
easily, as it seemed ; never caring except for results, or 
demanding credit for good intentions. 

Thus he grew glad to commit all ungrateful social work 
to her hands — ready and capable hands — and to live half 
the time, as before, a recluse, — poet and dreamer in a her- 
mitage. But a hermitage rife with every gratification to 
the senses and the spirit ; a recluse with the being of his 
choice wedded, soul and strength, to his service. 

Reporters, managers, actors, dilettanti came to see him 
at wrong hours on business that would not wait. For- 
merly he would either have seen and been rude, treating 
them as bores or interlopers, or refused to see them at all ; 
either way have spoilt his morning’s work, and made one 
more enemy. Marcia received them, gave them lunch, 
showed them the grounds, settled the business matter as 
Sundorne’s proxy, and sent them away pleased with them- 
selves and with her. After that, when these gentlemen 
heard her name aspersed, if they did not go so far as to 
defend her, they never joined in the denunciatory chorus. 

To Sundorne the social question was unimportant. 
With his country neighbors he had no more to do than 
with their cattle, as he expressed it. No more necessity 
for knowing them than one admits with one’s neighbors in 
town, declared Marcia, more politely. The overtures of 
reckless lion-hunters she civilly declined. At present she 
saw'f)nly Suiidorne’s friends — men more or less eminent, 
promising art-aspirants or ardent amateurs. 

Marcia had never underrated or despised women’s so- 
ciety ; but it cannot be pretended that with Sundorne for 
her constant companion, and the circle of choice spirits 
his growing repute enabled them to select their acquain- 
tance from, she felt the deprivation in itself severe. The 
petty personal element, never two minutes absent from 

13 


194 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


feminine intercourse, limits its scope pitifully. She had 
further to be on the defensive against every woman who 
had made a false step, every so-called emancipated one, 
who claimed in her an ally against social tyranny ; a fellow- 
sinner anyhow. Marcia declined to treat this as equiva- 
lent to a letter of introduction, and those who would have 
sheltered their trespasses under her wing found but cold 
comfort. Mrs. Samphire, whom the neighborhood had 
cut since a certain scandal, might as well have tried to get 
the haughty and impeccable Lady Fanfarron to conde- 
scend to know her. And little Mrs. Titteridge, another 
shipwrecked mariner on the matrimonial sea, who held 
forth on the enormities of her discarded consort to friends 
of an hour old, failed as signally. The bestowal of Mar- 
cia’s acquaintance was to be reckoned a favor, like pres- 
entation at court, sneered one of these. She was hated 
for it by the declassies, but she was feared, who had 
nothing herself to fear. Secure in her castle of content, 
Sundorne’s presence, what could harm her? The world’s 
most virulent reproaches were, for her, like the hissing of 
snakes with no fangs, since Sundorne was impervious to its 
smiles or frowns. Could they make her less to him or 
pluck one leaf from his crown ? 

So Sundorne’s heart was lifted up, and no wonder, in 
this day of promise of the magnificent fulfillment of im- 
moderate desires. The irreconcilable rebel of five-and- 
twenty years was not to be softened by the first embraces 
of content. As yet it quickened his fiercely defiant repu- 
diation of the order of things that had kept him so long 
out of his own. Eager to slake his thirst at life’s fountain, 
there was no place in him for regret, even, that he owed 
the conquered ground to a crime. 

The routine of his life that had begun was so thoroughly 
after his own heart that he became impatient of its sus- 
pension for a day. Forced to spend one in London now 
and then, each time he felt more miserable away from his 
home and from her, till he grudged every moment’s delay 
ere he found himself under the grey walls of Arden again 
— in the study she would never trust to a servant’s care, 
and where a sign would summon her to him. Nowhere 
else was the air so divinely fresh for him ; the stillness so 
soothing, flowers so fragrant ; the pleasant stimulus of 
society when they had guests under their roof enhancing 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


195 


the sweetness of the cherished hours together ; in the wood 
in summer, by the fireside in winter. And while the world 
was disputing whether he was at his best in the heroic- 
historic drama of Wentworth, or the lighter vein of its 
successor, The Beverley Minstrels, and some stuck to 
their old preference for King Rupert, he was as intent on 
a fresh creation as though it were his maiden effort. 
Delight proved more fruitful of inspiration than the darker 
passions of the past. The world might hold fairer women 
than Marcia, but never a one who answered more per- 
fectly to the needs of his nature — needs intellectual, moral, 
material. Constant in ambition, in faith, and in hatred, 
there was no germ of volatility in his great love — a master 
passion and a slave to serve him at once. 

As for the children, to him they were two fairy things, 
little angel attendants on his way. They could not dis- 
turb him ; they were a part of the living picture he would 
have missed from it with sorrow. 

No formal attempt to remove them had been made all 
these months. Dr. Blake, on hearing of their kidnapping, 
had written wrathfully, then expostulatingly, to Austin 
Day. He must contrive to get them away ; they ought 
not to remain with their mother ; but Wilfrid continued, 
as it were, deranged on that subject. His judgment, his 
conscience itself, seemed warped in everything connected 
with Marcia. 

“ Later on he will come to his senses and bitterly regret 
his present conduct/’ wrote the doctor ; “ but he will then 
have irreparably injured his own case. Can you not 
stand between your daughter and her off-spring. 

Austin Day’s reply was guarded. They were still in 
the nursery, and he did not see that much harm could 
come to them as babies from the influences with which 
they were surrounded. He had remonstrated, mildly, in 
effect, but in vain. Marcia had declared distinctly that 
she would only yield to force, and the father’s singular 
behavior tied the hands of his friends. In short, Austin 
Day washed his hands of the matter. He was now a 
constant visitor at Arden. 

To forgive or condone was, even for him, impossible. 
But Marcia remained none the less his daughter ; and 
Sundorne by every fresh work of his brought to light 
seemed to weave afresh web of enchantment, constraining 


196 


FA MO c/s OF INFAMOUS. 


those it entangled to fall down before him. Nay, Austin 
Day was just then chiefly intent on a distant artistic pro- 
ject, a dramatic scheme that through his secret promotion 
had recently been proposed to Sundorne, and that appealed 
irresistibly to the aspirations of the mighty dreamer that he 
was. 

There, again, Marcia had prevailed. The single danger 
to which she had exposed herself from which she shrank 
• — the forfeiture of her little ones — she was spared for the 
present, and spared by the fault of another, who, by his 
negligence and insensibility to his rights and duties, was 
practically casting them off, and had already put himself 
gravely in the wrong in the eyes of all right-minded per- 
sons. For the rest, she barred the door of her memory, 
as though she knew that if she looked back she must curse 
herself, and condemn the higher felicity. 

It was in the early spring of the following year that 
Bertha, after a long silence, received a letter from Dr. 
Blake, dated from a well-known American watering-place. 

“ You were right, Bertha,” he wrote, “ and the medical 
man was wrong. The change I wanted to see, and had 
lately come to despair of, was brewing all the while, and 
needed but accident to bring it to light. 

“ The other night we were strolling on the quay. An 
erection had there sprung up since the morning — one of 
those traveling tent-theatres ; and the magniloquent adver- 
tisements outside and squeaking fiddles within roused our 
amused curiosity. It was beginning to rain, too. ‘ Let 
us go in,’ he said, ‘ and see the joke.’ 

“ The joke was The Last Days of Pompeii. And the 
very last day of that Pompeii it proved to be, in grim 
earnest. 

“To make a long story short, a heavy thunderstorm 
with rain and wind that burst during the proceedings 
threw down the tent and destroyed scenery and appliances. 
The next morning the wretched itinerants came to him in 
despair, to beg. They had found out he was a great 
actor, and piteously represented how they were dependent 
for paying hotel bills already incurred on the perform- 
ances stopped, and their plant destroyed, etc. ‘ I don’t 
see how you can help them out of it,’ said I. ‘ I do,’ 
said he. 

“ Next day it was advertised all over the town that 
Wilfrid Carroll, the celebrated English actor, would give a 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


197 


performance for the benefit of the bankrupt strollers. He 
had found some members of a second-rate English com- 
pany, engaged here, to support him ; and the room was 
crammed. I, who had been so anxious for him to make 
the header, now felt a wretched coward on his account, 
and passed, I confess, the most anxious quarter of an hour 
of my life behind the scenes before the curtain rose. 

“ All went well. The audience were most enthusiastic. 
Few of them had ever seen him on the stage, so he had 
few comparisons to suffer with his old self, the only ones 
he needed to fear. 

“ This morning he tells me he has accepted an en- 
gagement at Easter, under his former manager, Crowe, 
to appear in a series of Shakesperian and other revivals 
at the Theatre Royal, extending through the season. 

“ We are coming home at once. I am thoroughly 
glad of it. He has got all the good that was to be got 
from wandering. Of course the real battle has yet to be 
fought. But I never thought to see him so well-equipped 
for it.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 

NEW DEPARTURES. 

The dawn to-day was not the same as yesterday’s ; the 
sun, the sky, the street, the square, the town, wore another 
and a fairer face for Bertha Norton. Wilfrid Blake was in 
England again. 

She had seen the ship’s arrival at Liverpool telegraphed 
in the papers, and stayed indoors all the morning for fear 
of missing — she knew not what ; then about midday her 
indefinite anticipations were realized in the solid form of 
Dr. Robert, who alighted from a cab at her door. 

Poor Robert ! Eighteen months’ .accumulation of busi- 
ness, professional and domestic, met him at home like a 
mountain wave. Swallow him up at once it must, as he 
saw, and entirely. He could not lead two lives. In 
future Wilfrid would have to get on without his keeper. 
Dr. Blake must exist in the first place for his patients, his 
wife, and children ; his brother would barely get the 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


1 98 

leavings of his time and attention. But he must lei him- 
self down gently, and in the course of the first few hours, 
sending other matters to the right about, he managed to 
slip off to pay his first call, on Bertha. 

He came in with a retinue of parcels, and cases that 
seemed to fill the thimble of a room. “ See, I’ve brought 
you all sorts,” he said, “ so as to make sure of including 
something that you like. Gentlemen usually blunder in 
choosing presents for ladies. This is a Mexican serape ; 
this is Indian embroidery ; and a queer inlaid cabinet, and 
some humming-birds, and carved ivories. I brought them 
over here at once, lest my wife should take a fancy to 
them. Wives — ladies in general indeed— have no scruple 
about appropriating things. Possession is nine points of 
the law.” 

Bertha admired the gifts, and thanked him prettily, 
gratefully, as one on whom presents do not rain. But she 
best appreciated them as the excuse that had sent him here 
to talk of another. 

“ Of course you bring only good news,” she said, “ since 
you have sanctioned his resuming his work.” 

“ Oh, there was no stopping it,” said the doctor with a 
shrug. “ Your hunter eats his head off in the stable ; and 
I can’t go globe-trotting with him till the end of the chap- 
ter. It was the only thing.” 

“ What are you afraid of? ” said Bertha, damped by the 
moody resignation of his tone. “ Is it not just what you 
desired ? ” 

“ I am afraid,” said the doctor, of him. It is no idle 
fear. There are always so many ways open to the bottom 
of the hill, that we ought to wonder much more than we 
do to see a man hold the one other way of honor and 
desert. What is there to keep him there now, Bertha ? ” 

“ Everything — I mean, more than enough. His finer 
nature and intelligence ; his noble instincts and refine- 
ment ; his superiority to other men,” returned Bertha 
warmly. 

Wilfrid’s brother snapped his fingers cynically, but he 
may not have meant anything. “ It is by the minor 
virtues,” he said, “ that men make their way in the world ; 
and here the little people win. What is the use of heroic 
qualities you have seldom call to exercise, if you let y'^ur 
little vices daily get the better of you ? A man may haf 


FAMOUS OF mPAMOUS. 


199 


the making of a hero, a martyr, an apostle in him ; what 
is it worth, if he has less patience, less self-control, less 
common caution in every-day life, than, say, an ordinary 
purveyor of pills and draughts like me ? How can he keep 
his place ? ” 

“ He who has won it can keep it,” said the girl confi- 
dently. 

“ No doubt.” He fidgeted uncomfortably. “ I’d as 
soon bite my tongue out as praise one we knew — one I 
could take now for a fiend incarnate. But however that 
may be, she did a good work on Wilfrid ; and when I look 
back to earlier times, and then on to the future, something 
says, ‘ Who defended him from his fatal temper, his puerile 
impatience? Who retrieved what he lost by incaution, 
recklessness of speech and action, and disregard of the 
claims of others ? Who, whilst tender and forgiving to 
every frailty, kept the temptation to give way to them at 
the lowest grade ? And the answer is always the same : 
Marcia, Marcia. His wife. Only his wife could ; and no 
wife so well as Marcia. Devil ! to guide you to the top of 
the precipice, to push you over with the same hand.” 

Bertha had never seen the phlegmatic Robert roused to 
such fluent and unreserved expression. After so many 
months of enforced observation and enforced muzzling, his 
burdened mind overflowed in speech. 

“ Sundorne cast a spell over her,” she sighed, almost as 
if she believed some real supernatural agency had been 
concerned. 

“ Pickpocket ! ” said Dr. Blake, irreverently. 

“ Does he ever speak of her ? ” 

“ Never. What he thinks — if he thinks of her at all — is 
what we shall never know.” 

You believe he cannot live without her,” said Bertha 
reflectively. 

“ Nothing of the sort,” retorted Dr. Blake impatiently. 
“ She did her worst, and yet, as you see, we have him 
alive and very well at the present moment, with his talents 
unimpaired. As for these severe attacks of neuralgic pain, 
they are nothing new, and not in themselves dangerous. 
Only at his peril will he trifle with himself now. Once let 
him fly to narcotics and stimulants to keep himself up to 
the mark, and the mark is lost beyond recovery. It 
would be a mere question of time — a very short time — then 


200 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


a second break-down ; the substance of which the last was 
but a shadow^ and his active life in the world is over.” 

“Where will he live now.?” asked Bertha by-and-by. 

“ For the present, with us. It is the best arrangement 
that seems practicable; but not a good one. Hours, 
habits, visitors, everything will clash. He wished it, and 
we have plenty of room, and couldn’t refuse. He insists, 
too, on making it pecuniarily advantageous. But I shall 
never see him, can’t possibly look after him, and our ser- 
vants will quarrel. The whole thing won’t last twelve 
months.” 

“ Still, a year will be tided over.” 

“ True, Bertha. Wise young person.” He paused, then 
resumed with emphasis. 

“ What he ought to do is to take a house — a home — and 
bring his children there. His present action, or persistent 
inaction rather, is monstrous, and gives rise to the wildest 
calumnies. I have not a word to say in his defence. I 
think Marcia perverts those she has to do with. I spoke 
my mind to him plainly enough, but he is absolutely imper- 
vious. His selfish shrinking from reopening the wound 
overmasters the first principles of honor and reason. I 
fancy a sense of it irks him now and then, but he has 
already placed himself in a false position. Personally I 
should stick at nothing to remove them from her influence, 
before they can become contaminated by it.” 

Bertha made no comment. Robert, observing her, re- 
marked that despite her six-and-twenty years she did not 
look a day older than in the past. Her sweet expression 
seemed to him to imply a happy freedom from heartaches 
of any sort. 

“ And you, Bertha,” he began, with joking significance, 
but privately inquisitive, “ have you sworn allegiance to 
St. Catherine, as they say ? ” 

“ Not at all,” she replied, laughing. “ But I am too old 
for a love match and not old enough for a mariage de 
raison. I mean to make one some day. There is still 
time for that.” 

Dr. Blake was thoughtfully silent, then rose to take 
leave, saying apologetically : 

“ A doctor has no right to indulge in such croakings as 
I have been inflicting on you. It is the brother, not the 
physician, whose groans you have been listening to. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


201 


Speaking as the medical man I should have been sanguine. 
Well, good-bye ; I felt I must come. What will my wife 
think of me ? Rushing off here, before I have had a word 
with my partner ! ” 

Bertha smiled. “ Thank you for coming,” she said. 
Dr. Blake looked at her face, struck, as if by something 
new. 

“You will see him at rehearsal to-morrow,” he said. 
“ I shall like to know what vou think. Observe him 
well.” 

“ Bertha is a puzzling girl,” he thought, as he hastened 
home. “ Is it possible I am the greatest ninny who ever 
wrote M.D. after his name ? ” 

Fifteen months' absence had cleared the dust from his 
eyes. 

“Observe him well.” Needless injunction, to Miss 
Norton. 

The first impression (confess it, Bertha), gave her a 
slight shock. It was not exactly the Wilfrid of the past 
that stood before her, still less the rather spiritualized 
invalid they had shipped off more than a twelvemonth 
ago. 

His frame was more vigorous-looking than she had ever 
seen it ; his complexion astonishingly bronzed ; his chest 
seemed broader ; his whole aspect had undergone one of 
those startling transformations that are the property of 
nervous organisms ; and in this temporary reinforcement 
of the merely physical faculties lost something of the old 
ideal grace. But directly he spoke, the voice and play of 
countenance struck the old chords, and she identified the 
wanderer returned with the cherished recollection. 

“ How brown you've grown,” said one comrade ; “ you’ll 
have to paint an inch thick.” 

“ Getting up for CoriolanusJ' suggested another. 

“ You an invalid,” said another jeeringly. “ Gammon ! 
Oh, I heard the other day, while they still kept putting 
bulletins about you in the papers, how you were going it 
at Saratoga.” 

That their resuscitated rival should have the impudence 
to come back and pose securely as the public favorite over 
all their heads, when his colleagues had consigned him to 
lasting impotence or the grave, and his bishopric been 
taken by another, was no unmixed pleasure. He had for- 


202 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


feited ground in the race, and every inch he wanted to 
have back, without dispute. He had to run the gauntlet 
of brutally plain observation, and speeches about as 
pleasant and considerate as a harrow. Bertha could have 
slain some of her dear comrades on the spot for their 
discourse, which in a former age would have afforded 
matter for two or three duels. 

Since the tongue, not the rapier, is our approved weapon, 
all should take lessons in the art of just retaliation and 
necessary self-defence. Wilfrid, in his present miraculously 
self-possessed mood, was a match for the worst of such 
aggressors. Swords were prudently sheathed after that 
morning, even when his back was turned. Men held their 
tongues. The ladies pronounced him improved, and no 
wonder, with that wife gone, who kept him in leading- 
strings, and thought herself and her husband too fine for 
actors’ society, joining and letting him join no more in it 
than was absolutely unavoidable. 

Carroll had never been popular in the green-room. He 
was tacitly invited to become so now. Certainly he met 
the kindly approaches of the fair in particular, their 
familiarity and persiflage, in a new and, on the whole, to 
them, more tolerable vein. Bertha saw the change, and 
saw it with regret ; but to her he was just the same as 
before. 

The critical occasion of his reappearance on the stage 
was watched by jealous eyes. Inimical hints and forecasts 
were not wanting that his acting would be found to have 
deteriorated, his popularity to have suffered, from his 
domestic mischance. Dr. Blake quaked secretly for the 
issue ; Wilfrid himself seemed far from confident. 

All these things put him on his mettle ; the part was one 
of his best ; his powers, refreshed by an unprecedentedly 
long holiday, responded to the call. The public, finding 
in their former favorite a source of enjoyment, as formerly, 
let him know it, and that they wanted him. The unani- 
mous verdict of the press on the morrow testified to the 
succeeding of success. 

His theatre had but one rival — the New Isis, where 
Sundorne’s seven-years-old comedy-drama, Beverley 
Minstrels^ now first given to the public, had taken his 
warmest admirers by surprise, by the proof here afforded 
of his versatility. The same theatre, said omniscient 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


203 


journalists, had the promise of The Bride of Tregaron., 
a romantic play on which he was now engaged. 

And it reached Bertha’s ears, as a dead professional 
secret, that at the inauguration next year of the new Aven- 
port Theatre, one of the finest in the provinces, and with 
a halo of classic histrionic memories about it, for which 
occasion grand dramatic doings were in contemplation, 
these threatened to take the form of a kind of apotheosis 
of the author of King Rupert. 

The “ Avenport Week,” whicn it was proposed then to 
initiate, was to be a Dramatic Week, that should rival in 
excellence and popularity those Triennial Musical Festivals 
for which many English county towns inferior in size and 
resources to Avenport are famous. And the further sug- 
gestion, now under the consideration of the committee, was 
that the performances, the opening year, should consist of 
a selection of Sundorne’s plays, with a new work from his 
hand, if procurable, for the crowning attraction. 

Bertha,” said Wilfrid to her one day, “ Rob has 
brought you a lot of presents, shawls and trinkets and what 
not, and I have brought you absolutely nothing. You 
must think me a monster of ingratitude — just what I am.” 

Bertha laughed and replied, “ The best tribute to a 
nurse is a perfect recovery ; and there it seems to me you 
have done your best.” 

“ And you,” he returned approvingly, “ have not thrown 
the time away. You have made a great advance, which is 
sure to be recognized.” 

Possibly. But to make quite sure he said a word to 
Crowe, and in the revival of Much Ado about Nothing 
Bertha found herself cast for the important part of Hero, 
to the grand disgust of certain of her compeers, openly 
wondering at so much favor shown to one they despised 
for not courting it in the approved methods. 

Bertha knew it was Wilfrid’s doing, though nothing had 
been said, and her heart swelled with untold gratitude for 
that word which had cost him nothing. He was sincere 
in his altered opinion of her improved dramatic powers, 
without, however, such admiration producing the least 
alteration — though Bertha might deem this impossible — 
in his personal sentiment. 

That was a hard season. Carroll appeared in a round 
of his old parts, with slightly modified renderings, and 


204 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


critics disputed whether he had fallen off or got on. The 
rehearsals were constant ; he had never been more hard 
worked ; business wanted all of him that was to be had, 
from the day of that so brilliant start onwards. 

The wheels did not work so smoothly as before. Those 
halcyon days were over for ever ; the continuity of his life 
was broken. 

It was a return to his half-forgotten aboriginal self, with 
its spurts and its limits, its combined mutability and ob- 
stination, before Marcia interposed and changed the whole 
bearing of his character on his career, enabling him, by an 
influence at once inciting and constraining, to live up, with- 
out pains, to that standard on whose sustaining now hung 
the future, for good or ill, of Wilfrid Carroll. 

Throughout early manhood, though sought after in 
general society and apparently gifted for it, he had always 
felt encompassed by a cloud of loneliness, of reserve. If 
ever he broke through it, abandoning constraint, he 
was sure to have good cause to repent. A temper that in 
itself drove him infallibly to consort with his inferiors, 
finding there a refuge of wholesale, uncritical admiration, 
never without attractions to the thin-skinned. But to 
Marcia he could be himself always, as he chanced to be, 
without fear. His foibles provoked no visible repugnance 
or impatience there, whilst neither blinked nor sillily 
fostered ; accepted as facts, like the freaks of the weather, 
whilst cleverly caring to render their action as innocuous 
as might be. Nor with all this tender leniency — like sym- 
pathy in its action — for the indications of mortal meanness 
and moral infirmity, did such lapses ever betray her into 
any response in kind ; baseness to baseness, animalism to 
animalism ; senseless violence to senseless violence — a tell- 
tale self-avowal that might have gratified his humor for the 
moment, whilst for ever tainting with unreality the other 
Marcia, the rallying-point of what in himself was of most 
worth. On the other hand, no flight of masculine artistic 
enthusiasm there was need to stifle, for fear of the wet 
blanket of feminine materialism, the cold water of common 
sense, untimely dropped. Women enough to pretend to 
understand him, and agree with everything he said, whilst 
privately occupied in taking notes of the trimming of a 
dress, or the hanging of the curtains, or the amount of 
attention being paid by so-and-so to somebody’s wife, that 
brazen little flirt, 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


205 


Clever women he cared for, as women, no more than do 
other men. Woman-like and practical to a fault, they were 
too busy in the exploitation of their cleverness. Where is 
the use of being clever if you do not show it off? There 
were others whose undivided attention he might have had 
for the asking, but there still survived in him that spiritual 
antipathy, planted and fostered by Marcia’s incomparable 
companionship, towards such who by contrast appeared 
like the figures in hairdressers’ shops or scullery wenches 
in fine clothes. It was not that he despised you, ladies. 
He found no difficulty in believing you could make first- 
rate doctors, lawyers, mathematicians, politicians if you 
tried ; nor had he any preconceived aversion to you in such 
capacities, where he would accept you as readily and in 
the same spirit as he did his men friends. It was the 
ordinary relations between man and woman that just now 
excited in him a kind of derisive animosity, whether exist- 
ing as those of wedded folk or of lovers, in any stage of 
infatuation. It was morbid, it was cynical ; it was unnatural. 
“ And,” said his brother to himself, commenting on this 
mood, ‘‘it will not last long. So much the worse for him 
and for me.” 

Wilfrid saw very little of his sister-in-law, who purposely, 
prudently, kept out of his way. Thus the double establish- 
ment worked for a time. Dr. Blake’s was a fair average 
household. But to Wilfrid it seemed as if there never was 
such a nest of troubles and mismanagement — stupid ser- 
vants, ill-brought-up children, bickerings, hitches, negli- 
gence, mistakes without end — and they seemed surprised 
when he got impatient ! He thought himself the most 
forbearing of men to put up with such insufferable 
annoyances for a moment ; whilst Dr. and Mrs. Blake 
complacently regarded themselves as martyrs, he willing, 
she unwilling, to fraternal duty, in enduring the disturbing 
influence of their lodger’s presence. Once the lady rebelled, 
told her lord plainly she could not and would not stand it. 
Two servants had given warning, and dear Bobby had 
come howling to tell her that his cruel uncle had struck him, 
and thrown his pet plaything out of the window and 
smashed it. This promising but injudicially educated 
youth omitted to mention that he had been indulging in his 
favorite though forbidden pastime of startling people as 
they came upstairs by rushing out and sounding his rattle 
in their ears. 


2o6 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


Dr. Blake entreated for patience. It was only for a time. 
Just for a little longer he would like to keep Wilfrid, about 
whom he was not yet quite happy, under his medical eye, 
and so forth ; and Mrs. Blake gave in, like the good wife 
that she was ; but she was cured for ever of her fancy for 
having an artistic celebrity in the family. Save hers from 
another such as this ! 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

DOWN AT THE MANOR. 


Marcia 1 ” 

Sundorne had hardly uttered the word when her figure 
glided in through the half-open door of the next room, and 
stood beside the midnight toiler. 

He had been there at his writing-table for hours, in the 
body, his intelligence meanwhile making its escape into a 
land of its own discovering, as unconscious of time and 
place as a man in a swoon. 

The reunion of soul and flesh was a painful shock to 
both. Her name had sprung instinctively to his lips as he 
touched earth again, yet her response to his evocation took 
him by surprise. 

“ Were you there ? I thought you must be sleeping,” 
he said, with a vague look, half of him still astray. 

“ Perhaps I was,” said Marcia, musingly also. “ But 
you have the ring and the lamp, you know. When you 
touch them the genie must reply.” 

She had seated herself near him on the sofa. Her flow- 
ing white wrapper veiled, without disguising, the sinuous 
grace of her figure, its beauty, like that of a master statue, 
telling, however indistinctly outlined in the dusk. Her 
amber hair, pushed back from her brow, drooped on her 
neck, twisted with a more careless grace than usual, and 
framing the handsome, intelligent face, pale to-night ; her 
grey eyes looked larger than they really were ; you would 
not call them bright, yet they could shine for him, and their 
steady light made Sundorne think of the sacred, ever-burn- 
ing flame on the altar of the Indian god. He passed his 
hand over his forehead, awakening slowly. 

“ What time is it? ” he asked, 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


207 


‘‘ Three o’clock.” 

“ Can I too have been asleep ? ” he wondered. 

No. He had sat down before going to bed, just to glance 
over what he had written and condemned in the morning. 
Then the fit had taken him ; he had seen his way through 
what had appeared a hopeless impasse. As when on the 
Alps your track ends in a sheer precipice, and you feel you 
have lost your way. Then you spy the tiny thread that 
winds round the face of the jutting rock ; a bare foothold 
where it passes, but a safe swift conduct for the mountaineer 
to the broadening path over gentle slopes, commanding the 
wide prospect you have come out to seek. Those four 
hours had lapsed like a moment ; time not to be measured 
by the hands of the clock. 

It was bearable, aye, sweet, to come to earth again, to 
be welcomed there by her face, eloquent at this moment 
with a passionate worship more precious to him than her 
tenderness, though for him she had both. 

“ Will you always come to my call, Marcia ? ” he asked, 
and his accent was sad, he knew not why. 

“ From the dead,” she murmured low, with all the 
quenchless fervor of her soul, “ if my dwelling-place were 
there, I would come to you, Sundorne.” 

She bent her face lower and their lips mingled. Like 
the dreamed-of elixir of the alchemists, such gladness, 
tasted, should have made them young eternally. 

“ Sit there, Marcia,” he said presently, “ and listen.” 

And she listened intently, as he read. 

His reading was as bad, as hurried, as indistinct as ever, 
but Marcia was used to it ; her imagination had learnt to 
fill in the blanks, to follow his faintly indicated thought, to 
complete a suggested sketch ; and he found in her the sure 
criterion he wanted, not of the popular taste, for which 
he had no more respect than of yore, although it bade fair 
to come round to his side, but of his own unclouded judg- 
ment, which he could appeal to her to supply, when he 
was suffering from the unsettling irritation, excitement, or 
exhaustion composition involves — as at this moment. 

On he rushed to the end, then looked up with a fierce 
frown of unspoken inquiry. 

“ Oh, I see, I see, you have found it, the buried treasure 
you were looking for,” she said thoughtfully, sharing to the 
full his satisfaction in whatever he produced that satisfied 


2o8 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


him, besides that peculiar close attachment of the maker for 
his work — vanity apart — like nothing but the sentiment 
of a mother for her child, which she may or may not admire. 
“ How I wish I were a Rachel, to play Porphyria according 
to your behest ! ” 

“ You ! As if I could spare you,” and he laughed aloud. 
“ A play may exist without actors, but not actors without 
a play. Nor my work without you now, Marcia. Think 
of the old life — one long fight with death and hell and the 
world of reptiles we call our fellow-creatures.” 

“ Nay, it is past, it cannot come again, for you have 
conquered,” she murmured quickly, pained by the strength 
of her sympathy as she saw the look of undying bitterness 
the scorpion sting of association had evoked. “ Let come 
what may now, you have written ” — and her fingers rested 
lightly on the blotted illegible pen-and-ink sketch he had 
flung on the table — “ what will live as long as the language 
you speak.” 

He did not doubt it ; yet this could not dissipate the 
gloom that was oppressing him. Nothing more than the 
due reaction after undue tension of brain ; but it weighs 
man down more than a world of sorrow. 

‘‘ Won’t you sleep now,” asked Marcia softly, “ now the 
work is done ? ” 

“ I am not tired,” he said, and the house is so hot 
to-night, I should not sleep. Come into the open air for a 
moment. There must be some freshness out of doors.” 

The room was not hot at all ; but he felt as if he could 
not breathe. Marcia wrapped herself up, and they stepped 
out on the silent lawn together, whence a few paces brought 
them to the wild stretch of garden-ground alongside the 
wood, heavily scented with summer flowers. Here, the 
white lilies gleamed in the moonlight ; there, a tangled 
thicket of the flame-colored Austrian briar rose glowed 
like a burning bush. 

The summer dawn was shimmering faintly, and the cold 
air revived him completely ; but such a night as this “ was 
not made for slumber.” Their figures passed into the wood 
that bordered the garden. 

In the centre of this leafy wilderness was Sundorne’s 
present hermitage, his summer studio, where he spent the 
warm days, reading or writing whilst Marcia and the chil- 
dren played in the copse ; their voices mingled with the 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


209 


birds’ songs in his ears. It was a fairy nook, wreathed 
round with creepers ; within, so fitted up that he could 
study, or rest, or have his meals there, if such was his 
whim. It was night here still; and the nightingales had 
not done singing. 

As Sundorne recovered his bodily ease, and with it his 
mental activity, this last was harassed by forebodings 
Marcia had never found it so hard to still. 

“ You call the work done,” he said, alluding to his 
Festival composition, “ but it is as good as unbegun. I 
have reconceived it from the outset ; and the whole of the 
first version is useless, and I shall destroy it. It must now 
be reconstructed ; and it may be that I cannot have the 
whole ready at the time promised.” 

And the Festival scheme, as at present projected, fall 
through in consequence — a horrible disappointment to 
Marcia. He had alluded to this oossibility before, and was 
evidently in earnest now. 

“ It will all be finished, and in time,” she said confi- 
dently. “ And,” she suggested, hesitating, “ even if Lucian 
and Porphyria had to wait, could not, would not the others 
suffice to ” 

“ No, no ; I should withdraw from the affair,” he said 
definitely. “ It was arranged on the understanding that 
the new work should then appear. Something tells me it 
will come to that. It shall not — it must not.” 

“ I shall help you,” said Marcia wistfully, “ as the mouse 
helped the lion. I will be your hand, Sundorne. If only 
my head could do you service ! However, you will not 
need that.” 

The tall oak stands up in the forest, type of sturdy inde- 
pendence, yet how many things it needs to come to its 
strength and perfection. The light to drive up the sap 
and quicken the buds ; the warmth to nourish the leaves 
at their birth ; the sunshine to stimulate life and growth ; 
the dew and showers of rain to freshen the foliage ; the 
birds to destroy the blighting hosts that can shear the 
proudest lord of the forest of his glory. All these was 
she to him. Vitalizing as the light ; soothing as the south 
wind ; delighting as the sunshine’s glow ; refreshing as the 
dew or sweet showers of April. His Spring, whose em- 
brace, once felt, he could never forego and be the Sundorne 
of old. Poet’s lips have not told of its heavenly sweetness / 

14 


210 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


as he felt her white arms encircling him ; her soft hair 
swept his cheek ; her head on his breast, stilling the pain 
at his heart. A Delilah from whom at such moments he 
could not — no more than Samson — have kept the secret of 
his strength. A Delilali in whose keeping it would have 
been safer than in his own, one from whom neither tor- 
ments nor blandishments would have wrung it. 

“ I am tired and cold, Marcia,” he said suddenly. “ Let 
us go in now.” 

In point of fact he had undertaken a formidable task. 
With The Bride of Tregaron not yet out of his hands he 
was embarking in his new work for the Festival, which, as 
he conceived it, from the very nature of the subject de- 
manded an extraordinary amount of historical, literary, 
and artistic quarrying. And even supposing it happily 
carried through, its completion would be merely the open 
ing of a still more laborious campaign. 

From the moment the proposed Festival took definite 
form as a Sundofne Festival, there would be no rest, night 
or day, for the master of the ceremonies till it was over. 
But liis faith in his own capacity for work was inexhaust- 
ible, whilst in Marcia it amounted to something like a 
superstition. He shrank from no undertaking on the score 
of its involving superhuman labor. For his imagination 
no difficulties were insuperable. Flers had been allured 
by the unique triumph she foresaw he might achieve on 
such an exceptional occasion as this. Her fancy did not 
overleap the obstacles that lay between him and his ambi- 
tious goal, but his audacity was communicative. His life 
aim had been directed to the conventionally impossible. 
Had it not been justified by the event, success } 

The world of the wise, that does not go in for composi- 
tion, has no distant suspicion of the labors that may be 
involved in a work of imagination the actual putting on 
paper of which may take but a short time ; the study, 
researches, store of miscellaneous knowledge in these days 
sometimes absolutely essential to its birth. Even the mere 
writing of the newspaper article, which to-day is, and to- 
morrow is cast into the waste-paper basket, may imply as 
many different arts mastered, as many kinds of work, as 
the manufacture of your watch ; but with no division of 
labor practicable here. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


2II 


And if, in order to clear his mind concerning some 
doubtful particular, Sundorne had fancied it necessary for 
him to master the cuneiform inscriptions, or the most 
abstruse of the sciences, he would have set about it as a 
matter of course, undeterred by such minor considerations 
as the limits of individual life or life-energy. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

UP IN THE CITY. 

Wilfrid was on his way to the theatre. He had dined at 
home early, and chose to walk down, just for exercise. It 
was one of those English summer afternoons when our 
climate makes amends for all past iniquities by presenting 
us with the perfection of genial warmth, tempered by faint 
cool breezes, sunshine that lingers, scorches not, and dies 
gently, imperceptibly ; a day when it is good to live — to 
breathe ; such a day as dwellers in the south never know. 
These were gasping in darkened rooms, or faint with sun- 
stroke, or sweltering out of doors, whilst Londoners revelled 
in an atmosphere of Paradise. Rare days, yet no year 
passes but brings its quantum. 

The little caged fortune-telling birds, exhibited in the 
streets by heavy-featured Italian girls, green parrokets from 
the tropics, began to twitter, roused from their torpor by 
the delicious glow and wealth of sunshine. No freedom, 
no forest life for them any more, doomed to perch in a cage 
ten inches square and earn seeds to peck by pulling out 
cards with their beaks — yet bird-life revived in them to 
day ; they chirped and preened their feathers. 

Wilfrid was enjoying life in the same primitive fashion. 
He had slept well last night, eaten with appetite to-day, 
walked without lassitude, and thoroughly appreciated the 
excellent quality of his cigar. The mental feeling, indis- 
tinguishable from a physical one, as of a little wound un- 
healed, and marring every sense of enjoyment — as a man 
in bounding health is scarcely more comfortable than the 
invalid if forced to walk with a sharp stone in his shoe — 
was stilled. You wondered that flowers could grow so 
bright in a London square, such fresh breezes blow over a 


212 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


city of four millions ; the brisk roll of carriages, their 
brightly-dressed occupants, and countless other touches of 
sparkling life penetrated every living thing with an exhila- 
rating gaiety. Even the beggars were merry, and asked 
alms without a whine. Some children were fiddling decently 
in a side alley ; and Wilfrid threw the little girl some 
money, partly because he was in a giving humor, and part- 
ly because she was a pretty child. Everybody looked 
their best, as the world does, in clover. The fair sex were 
in their glory, like the parrokets, with their fine feathers 
spread — high and low alike. Wilfrid’s notice was momen- 
tarily caught by a passing face, destitute of interest, intelli- 
gence, or coquetry — some shop-assistant or working hand 
— with a handsome rough mould of feature, hair of intense 
color, bright eyes, and dairy-maid complexion ; and he 
looked with a perfectly sincere, half-amused astonishment 
to find himself admiring something ; and the saucy hoyden 
looked back, unabashed, an honest brazen thing, ready 
with her impudent comment that she hoped he would 
know her again — which he most certainly would not in five 
minutes. Just a transient impression of youth and fresh 
buxom life, and the philosophical reflection that the daugh- 
ters of the people, for genuine good looks, run their deli- 
cately-nurtured sisters in the carriages very hard. 

Carroll the actor was in excellent form to night, his 
comrades remarked, alive, as only daily observation can 
make you, to those variations which, though often consider- 
able, escape the audience whose members only see the 
artist at intervals. Perhaps it was Verena Courtney’s first 
appearance as Juliet that felicitously inspired the Romeo 
of the night. The stage-queen kept her throne, as queenly 
and as stagey as ever, and ever bewitching. Her dress 
was a product of profound art ; her attitudes made you 
long to perpetuate each in a picture. Her style was artifi- 
cial, her effects forced and overdone, her acting a life-long 
flirtation with the audience, but English playgoers were so 
used to her mannerisms that they scarcely perceived them. 
And Carroll’s superlative performance to-night had struck 
in her a chord of emulation. 

It was the first time they had appeared together since 
his return from America, and she fancied that for once he 
admired her, nor was she entirely mistaken. This second- 
rate siren could enamor two very opposite sections of the 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


213 


human race — the raw and uncultured souls, whom she 
charmed as something ideal ; and those whose life-educa- 
tion was complete, and had led them to forswear their 
old faith founded on the supposed existence of more ex- 
cellent ideals than that represented by Verena Courtneys. 

Really you forgot that her voice never found a genuine 
ring, that her emphasis was monotonous, that of the intent 
of her part she had no more real conception than a parrot 
of the oaths it raps out. She was such a beautiful parrot ; 
why, her throat alone might furnish inspiring matter for a 
long poem, to a poet of the right school. Of course she 
was made up, in every way ; neither complexion, figure, 
nor hair were ever to be seen as nature made them. But 
to detect the additions was impossible. She was like an 
artistically touched-up photograph. 

She chose to think that Carroll had been more polite to 
her of late, and the feverish energy he threw into his acting 
this evening flattered her subtly, and communicated a touch 
of real feeling to her own. The public, who had long firmly 
believed in a romance between them, looked on and 
thought their thoughts ; the hero and heroine had never 
come so near to giving just a shade of foundation for the 
myth as that night. 

Verena, after the curtain had fallen, manoeuvred to de- 
tain Carroll, when he joined her reception in her dressing- 
room, until after her society acquaintances had dispersed. 

“ I never see you now,” she said, with charming gra- 
ciousness ; and she chid him frankly for his ill-manners. 
Extreme condescension in one so universally sought, nay 
persecuted by attentions from distinguished quarters as 
she — and to a man who had given her good reason to hate 
him, one with whom she was often not on speaking terms. 
To her glance of undisguised coquetry and playfully- 
dropped suggestion that he should come, if really penitent, 
as he now professed himself, to see her to-morrow — they 
had business, a coming benefit, to discuss — he responded 
in a similar vein. Yes, he would come, since he might 
hope to be forgiven, and so on. And Verena drove off, 
secretly triumphant, and more than half persuaded that 
she almost cared for the wretch. Wilfrid was leaving the 
theatre with Crowe, who at the moment of parting ob- 
served : 

“ I’m due at a supper-party at Honora Barton’s. She 
mentioned you — said she wasn’t going to ask you because 


214 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


you would refuse ; but she would awfully like you to come, 
uninvited.” 

Honora Barton was an opera bouffe singer and the rage. 
Carroll had a slight acquaintance with her, through pro- 
fessional collaboration at benefits, and they had met in 
some catholic-minded artistic circles, since her promotion, 
years ago, from the music-halls, where her apprenticeship 
to vocal and dramatic art had been served. She was free 
from the smallest false pretensions to education or refine- 
ment, but a public idol, and liked in private, as a good- 
natured thing. As for her reputation, there were people 
who would have gone to the stake for it. To be sure, she 
was separated from her husband: but in the action taken 
by that brute, who had maltreated her, the lady had come 
off with flying colors. 

“ Well, you’re not coming, of course,” said Crowe. 

“ Why not ?” said Wilfrid indifferently. 

“ Good.” Crowe chuckled contentedly. “ Honora will 
be civil to me for the rest of the year for this.” 

In a general way, Carroll, invited to supper by Miss 
Barton, would have been engaged or indisposed. But the 
impromptu suggestion to go and finish the evening there 
in sportive fashion coincided with his freakish humor. He 
was possessed of a sudden with a whimsical curiosity to 
see himself one of the bohemian rout. 

Bijou Lodge, the lucky artiste’s residence, was situated 
in the far west ; an auctioneer’s ideal, very much over- 
decorated, inside and out. Something, here, of the incon- 
gruous luxury rushed into by artisans in flush seasons. 
Honora was earning her fifty pounds a week at the Baga- 
telle Theatre, and worth it too, to the management. 

Crowe rang a peal loud enough to wake the dead. 

“ Honora’s servants are always gossiping or out of the 
way,” he remarked. “ Best thing is to give them a start j 
make them jump out of their skins.” 

He was greeted by the party in the reception-room with 
a noisy shout of welcome which died abruptly at the sight 
of Carroll, whose coming, clearly, fell on them like an 
aerolite. 

‘‘ I’ve taken the liberty to bring a friend,” began Crowe 

jocosely, “a stranger. Allow me to introduce ” But 

here Miss Honora’s loud, public-singer’s voice struck in, 
“ Mr. Carroll ! Oh, you angel ! How just delightful of 
you to come ! ” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


215 


For Honora’s mind, though not alive to delicate in- 
fluences, felt honored unspeakably by the advent of a 
guest notoriously chary of his company at petits soupers 
and such jollifications. Embarrassed? Not she. Had his 
Majesty, of any country under the sun, presented himself, 
she would merely have begged him to make himself at 
home, and drop his P’s and Q’s, that’s all. 

The circle included some half a dozen men, with some 
of whom Carroll was on easy terms — an elderly dramatic 
critic, a successful young writer of opera libretti, two 
musical artists and a couple of mashers, who from their 
evident beatitude might have been dead and in heaven 
already, and as many ladies, quite ready to be on easy 
terms with him — fellow-artists of Honora’s over-dressed 
and under-dressed, like herself. Honora’s aunt, Biddy, 
should have honorable mention, on these occasions taken 
from the kitchen, which she preferred ; compelled to don 
a respectable gown and have her hair done, consoling her- 
self for the discomfort by the banquet in prospect by-and- 
by. 

“ Tell them to hurry up,” said Honora to this helpmate. 
“ You’re as hungry as wolves, I can see.” 

“ No wonder,” said the critic. “ She’s kept us all wait- 
ing for you,” he asserted to Crowe. 

“ If it hadn’t been for Mr. Silliman here,” said Honora, 
“ who brought just the loveliest bon-bons, I think we’d 
have fainted.” She and her lady friends had cleared out 
some pounds of sugar-plums. “ I know those chocolates 
have given me a famous appetite. What on earth can that 
girl be about ? Oh, at last ! ” as Aunt Biddy went to see, 
and threw open the doors significantly. “ Now let’s waltz 
in to supper,” suggested the frolicsome fair. “ Come, 
Carroll.” And amid much hilarity the company twirled 
in two and two through the portiere^ and sank down, 
breathless with laughing, on their chairs round the table. 

“ Why ever do you look so sour? ” demanded Honora 
immediately of her partner, contrasting his expression with 
that of the mashers. 

“ I must with so much sweetness around me,” he re- 
turned, and the fearful platitude of gallantry satisfied the 
complainant as no brilliant jewel of wit would ever have 
done. 


2t6 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


“ Put him at the head of the table,” advised Crowe, “ on 
Honora’s left and the champagne’s right, and he’ll soon 
begin to be amusing.” 

“ Have I begun already,” asked Carroll, looking round, 
“ that you’ve all been chuckling ever since I came in ? 
What is the joke ? Is it me ? ” 

“ Exactly,” returned Crowe. “ Miss Barton promised 
me, if I could persuade you to come to-night, to play an 
act of Caramel for my benefit. She’d just given you 
up, I see. But there you are, and to-morrow, Honora, 
you’ll ” 

“ Hold your tongue,” the lady struck in. “ Now I owe 
you a grudge for telling tales.” 

“ Put it down to your milliner’s bill, my dear. Pay me 
when you pay for your dress. I’ll wait till then.” 

“ My dress,” she echoed, with a laugh and a look at 
the masher, who began to blush and look foolisher than 
before. “ That’s paid for. At least I believe so.” 

“ Then, my dear, you’ll believe anything.” 

“ Will you be quiet ? ” returned the addressed. “ Help 
me to some of that galantine, and I’ll tell you a story.” 

Then, Crowe having heaped up her plate well, she 
resumed composedly, the unfortunate masher looking 
ready to sink into the floor. 

“It was a wager between me and Dick Silliman there. 
I said I’d wear anything he gave me. He betted me a 
cool hundred that I wouldn’t. I dared him, and we settled 
it so. He was to send a dress, and I to wear it, whatever 
it was — outside^ of course — at Madame Farrago’s garden- 
party, where I was to sing. He sent me a silk an inch 
thick — I believe you had made it on purpose, Dick — em- 
broidered all over with little flying boys.” 

“ Flying what ? ” 

“ Pink and white things with wings — cherubs, Cupids, 
or whatever you call them. Now of course I couldn’t wear 
such a concern as that.” 

Well, what did you do then ? ” 

“ Had the whole thing dyed black,” thundered Honora 
triumphantly, to a roar of laughter. 

“ A good idea,” said somebody. “ Was it yours ? ” 

“ No, Biddy’s over there,” replied Honora, elicitating 
another shriek. “ But I wore it and won the hundred.” 

“ What did you do with that ? ” asked Crowe. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 217 

“ Played ducks and drakes with it,” suggested the 
ancient critic. 

“No, dominoes,” said Honora literally, “and lost it, 
every farthing. Mr. Carroll, what’s the matter with you 
to-night? You’re not eating or drinking anything.” 

As a fact, he was doing full justice to the heterogeneous 
provisions heaping the table. But he was indisputably 
much too much taken up with his left-hand neighbor, a 
little nobody out of the Bagatelle chorus, whom Honora, 
despising, had invited as padding or a foil — a girl without 
any spirit or any substance to speak of. But a piquant 
little face, fluffy brown hair, a more delicate mould of 
feature than was in keeping with her origin and position, 
and something sad underlying her mirth ; surprised and 
elated as she felt by so much condescension from the lion 
of the party. 

She talked — she was not vulgar, though the atmosphere 
she lived and breathed and had her being in was saturated 
with vulgarity. She was certainly pretty, and if she had 
not much to say she said it in a naive original fashion ; 
and on the whole Carroll was rather enjoying himself, for- 
getful of his remissness in attention to the hostess. 

Honora at last felt it due to herself to remind him. She 
was hardly jealous ; she had no wiles, like Verena ; she 
was too stupid to lay snares or traps for the unwary ; she 
had always found plenty of admirers without. But she saw 
how Carroll’s persistent neglect of her for little Fluffy 
there was giving rise to some jesting comment. She must 
stop that. 

“ Fluffy, what a chatterbox you are. You won’t let poor 
Mr. Carroll eat a mouthful. Have some of this pate. No? 
Why, you all seem to be done but Biddy, I declare ! But 
keep your seats, good people ; Miss Fitzwilliam will give 
us a song.” 

“ No, can’t, really,” rejoined the lady appealed to, a 
charmer of two-and-twenty, in crimson satin, speaking with 
a strong provincial accent, but distressingly urban in man- 
ner and address. “ I’ve caught the almightiest cold.” 

“Try the ‘ Sneezing Song,”’ suggested Crowe, “a song 
of the season.” 

There was a general shout. “ Ah ! Miss Barton, Miss 
Barton, the ‘Clucking Song.’ Just one verse if you love 
us, and want to give us a treat.” 


2i8 


famous or infamous. 


The success of the season, the song of songs, in nine- 
tenths of the public’s opinion, as was testified by the furious 
triple nightly encore. A private performance would be 
fraught with a curious charm 

Miss Barton declined. She did not love them, and did 
not see what they had done to entitle them to a treat. 

“ Now, Miss Barton, do,” urged masher number two, 
“ or I shan’t sleep a wink all night.” 

“ I tell you I can’t,” said Honora. “ What’s it to me 
whether you sleep or no? ” 

“ Well, sing, if you won’t cluck for us,” suggested Car- 
roll, whereupon Honora, relenting, warbled “ The Love 
that’s never told,” an ultra sentimental ditty, the applause 
she received inducing her to proceed with the “ Clucking 
Song,” which threw the party into ecstasies. It was not 
clever ; superfluous to add, it was not pretty. Its humor 
was of the broad and childish sort that most enamors us. 

The dramatic author was called on next. He had, or 
used to have, a song, commonly called comic, “ Out with 
it!” 

“ Carroll looks so bored,” objected this self-conscious 
individual. 

“ Does he ? ” said Honora compassionately. “ Then he 
shall go and play billiards with me in the next room until 
it’s over,” springing up as she spoke and taking Wilfrid’s 
arm to march him off to the billiard table. “Will you ?” 

“With all the pleasures in life,” he responded, rising 
and deserting poor Fluffy with an alacrity that hurt her, 
hardened though she was to the ways of men. Honora’s 
billiard-playing was comic, but she would persevere, be- 
cause of her arms, which were magnificent. 

“Little Fluffy Newton’s a stupid thing, isn’t she?” 
began Honora, under cover of the singing, twirling her 
cue and knocking a ball about in aimless fashion. “ So 
vulgar too — I wonder they took her on at the Bagatelle.” 

“ Raison de plus^" said he. 

“Oh, translate, I don’t understand French. My! what 
a stroke of yours ! A fluke, though. You won’t call her 
pretty ? ” 

“ I’ll call her whatever you please. She is good-looking 
though.” 

“Better looking than me?” said Honora flatly, facing 
him with serene confidence in her redundant charms. 

“ As if you didn’t know that,” he said banteringly. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


219 


“ I know you’re the rudest man I ever came across,” 
said Miss Barton, who understood not persiflage, “ If I 
thought you meant it, I’d ” 

“ Turn me out of doors,” he suggested. 

“ No, not you. Her perhaps,” replied Honora magnani- 
mously and with candor. 

Something distracted Carroll’s attention ; he missed the 
next stroke. 

“ Had enough ? Now wouldn’t you rather sit down and 
talk to me ? ” she asked, installing herself on the ottoman ; 
he responding spontaneously as behooved him to the 
flattering invitation, or rather command. “ There. Why, 
I declare this is quite like old times,” she continued, 
referring to some entirely mythical period, when they two 
had been better acquainted than now. 

A gentleman guest, who presently arrived, found the 
great Carroll at the feet, metaphorically speaking, of the 
enchanted and enchanting hostess. The late visitor was 
a music-hall singer, come to escort his wife home. But he 
was detained in the inner room to take refreshment, and 
give his celebrated imitations of animals, echoes of which 
floated into the ante-chamber, agreeably varied by snatches 
of grotesque music on the piano, by a clever virtuoso 
relegated evermore to the lower ranks of his profession by 
a predilection for brandy. The small hours were getting 
on. Where, and oh where was Aunt Biddy? She had 
simply gone to bed, being sleepy after supper, and uneasy 
on discovering that the party numbered just thirteen. 
Nobody perceived her absence. The jovial clamor rose 
and rose ; the elderly critic was distinctly in his cups — his 
nightly condition, which he carried off with a tact and 
discretion that testified to lifelong experience. There were 
tricks with long-suffering tumblers and decanters ; then 
games ; hide-and-seek all over the house. The dramatic 
author, the single member of the party who kept his perfect 
mind when his turn to hide came, took this opportunity of 
decamping discreetly, leaving the others to hunt for him till 
they were tired. 

The sun was up when Crowe departed in his carriage, 
too far gone clearly to recollect the next day whether 
Carroll had left in his company ; his last recollections, or 
hallucinations, a pleasing medley of jorums of champagne 
and marvelous jests, and Miss Fitzwilliam and playmates 


220 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


sliding downstairs on a tea-tray ; and Honora Barton’s 
white arms and ample person, and Carroll making himself 
conspicuous by his silent homage to her charms, the two 
looking, to the dramatic author, who was an idealist at 
heart, like a certain old fable reversed. It was Oberon, 
not Titania, abjectly enthralled. 

Verena was wondering if he would come, as promised, to 
her “ afternoon.” Her vanity had suffered so long and so 
grievously from his indifference, that the idea of his con- 
version to a better mind, thus affording her the opportunity 
of a mild revenge, was very sweet. 

He came ; but his behavior on that occasion effectually 
undeceived her as to her fancied power in that quarter. 
He would talk of nothing but the Benefit. Crowe had 
looked in on a similar errand, and Carroll showed not the 
slightest inclination to outstay the man of business. Ver- 
ena never forgave him, nor herself, for having been led to 
make that trifling advance. 

But the most unkindest cut of all, for Verena, was still 
to come, in the spicy stories, true or false, bruited abroad, 
to the effect that Carroll the incomparable was becoming 
an ignoble slave to the very every day charms of Miss 
Honora Barton. To be slighted for such a creature as 
that, without morals or manners, or airs or grace ! Verena 
would rather he had given her a slap in the face than that 
lump of flesh for a rival. 


CHAPTER XX. 

ON THE HEIGHTS. 


Ten years ! 

Fashions, intellectual fashions, change, and we think it 
is progress. 

Since the fancy performances presided over by Austin 
Day at West Sheen had collapsed, for lack of funds or 
other support, a decade had seen the drama come into 
prominence and fashionable vogue again, till an ambitious, 
well-planned, well-advertised dramatic event was almost as 
sure of attracting a large attendance as a race-course. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


221 


Neither enthusiasts for high art, like Austin Day, nor 
bold innovators like Siindorne, were those Avenport 
gentlemen who had planned this attempted institution of 
a Triennial Dramatic Festival which should do honor to 
their city. Theirs was the grateful task of advancing an 
already popular cause. In the actual state of revived, nay, 
acute interest in the drama, their experiment was sure, at 
the least, to command respectful attention. Town and 
county magnates had guaranteed the funds — Cecil Main- 
waring, Sundorne’s earliest patron’s name figuring high on 
the subscription list. The profits were to go to the local 
beneficent institutions. 

The proposal of the Simdornites on the Committee — 
instigated by Austin Day — to select their programme, this 
first year, from those works of his about which every one 
was talking, bold and novel-sounding though it was, had 
eventually found acceptance, even with the more timid, on 
the understanding that these should include a new drama 
from that now by many pronounced superlative master 
hand. 

For his extraordinary temporary notoriety, though partly 
due to the noisy opposition that everywhere accompanied 
him about, as stormy weather the legendary Wandering 
Jew, would add materially to the interest of the Festival, 
and help not a little to advertise it in those days. Days 
when people were wont to ask each other, Do you 
believe in Sundorne ? ” as though he were Animal Mag- 
netism, or Natural Selection, or some other important 
disputed scientific fact. 

All through the winter the project, its fulfilment now 
depending on Sundorne alone, hung in doubt. Thrice 
the opposition were “ enabled to state ” that the whole 
wild plan had had to be abandoned, as from the first they 
had foretold. Meanwhile Sundorne had set to work again 
in his violent way on his Festival composition. In the 
course of the spring it was ready, and the Avenport pro- 
gramme drawn up. 

Lucian and Porphyria^ the promised new drama, was 
to be given on the opening night and repeated on the 
Friday afternoon that concluded the representations ; King 
Rupert, Wentworth, The Beverley Minstrels, and Fran- 
cesca da Run ini on the days between. 

From the date of that first published announcement the 
coming event became the grand theme of dispute in all 


222 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


circles with any pretension to an artistic flavor. It was a 
fantastic absurdity, a gigantic bubble, and lamentable 
misapplication of funds, energy, and opportunity ; or a 
splendid seal to pre-eminently deserved success — accord- 
ing to the set you were in. 

Most of the leading actors of the day, with one exception 
— whose absence, his kindliest critics must own, was less 
regrettable than would have been thought possible on his 
reappearance after his return from America, more than a 
year ago — were eager to volunteer their services. In the 
casts, in all stage and scenic arrangements, Sundorne 
was paramount, as wherever he showed his face. His 
dramatic instinct had proved right so often that stage- 
managers now blindly deferred to his will ; and even 
popular players meekly accepted his criticisms and preg- 
nant hints, and whilst chaffing under the despotism of his 
rule, took it for granted. 

For those six strenuous months, from May to late 
October, there was no rest at Arden. All day long a going 
and coming of all sorts and conditions of men, of letters 
and telegrams — a whole staff of officials might have found 
employment. Even Sundorne’s perennial energy bade fair 
to flag under the exorbitant demands upon it. But for 
Marcia, the load he had undertaken would have proved 
too much for the shoulders of an Atlas. No detail of 
mounting, grouping, or costume, in a single one of the 
coming representations, but his spirit must preside, his 
judgment dictate. His fiction was a reality to him in the 
completest sense. 

Marcia entertained impossible guests, heard complaints, 
soothed irate actors, rectified grievances, yet never seemed 
like one who, in gathering up fresh burdens into hands 
very full, lets fall what she holds already. She allowed 
herself but a few hours’ sleep, but her sound and vigorous 
constitution suffered no disturbance. Her devotion was 
no fitful fever, no morbid heroism, like the abnormal 
strength of a man in a fit of mania. To live for Sundorne, 
with every fibre of her body, every pulsation of her brain, 
trained to do him service, was an everlasting contentment. 
She had not known she was so strong, so clever, of such 
infinite resource, continually reanimated by the delight of 
feeling that devotion something more than thoroughly 
appreciated ; that Sundorne, self-absorbed though fie 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


223 


might be, and not chary in his demands upon her, was in- 
tensely conscious of her worth to him, and that the great 
love that he bore her was commensurate with her own, 
however different in its essence ; that his passion for the 
woman, his tenderness for the wife, were joined to a great 
regard — the complete appreciation which a superior nature 
can only excite in one of kindred quality. It was not that 
she was indispensable to his worldly prosperity, as she had 
been to Wilfrid’s. Without her he would have won his 
way ; he was winning already when they first met ; but 
the pilgrimage, though the goal were one he was bound to 
reach, was transformed from one of pain to a progress, 
toilsome still, but sweetened by those joys of life his old 
course had excluded, and by that higher love, which, 
though he had sung and portrayed it with a power of pas- 
sionate expression that had now passed into the creed of 
lovers, had then hid its face from the singer. A fresh in- 
spiration, coming in the Indian summer of his manhood. 
It had nerved him to his latest supreme productive effort, 
and was to carry him over those months of sleepless labor 
to ensure that it should not be thrown away. 

So he flashed about the Avenport theatre at the last 
rehearsals, fault-finding, explaining, commanding, his meta- 
morphosed position now admitted to sanction the worst of 
those asperities of character that had formerly cost him so 
dear. Rudeness was originality, the brusquerieoi genius ; 
presumption impossible in one who could claim from 
society what he chose, one whom great personages 
stooped to meannesses to get to know, who had wealth, 
repute, popularity at his disposal. Self-absorption was 
natural and desirable, a condition of production; home- 
truths from such lips gave no offence. 

In everything, except himself, his estate had altered 
since his first coming to Arden. His celebrity had vastly 
increased, till to extol him and his writings had become an 
article of faith with the younger school of critics ; so 
transcendent a literary success as told in other than 
literary quarters. 

The curiosity to know the author of The Beverley 
Minstrels^ Wentworth^ and The Bride of Tregaron had 
prevailed in many, and bade fair to in most. 

Marcia and he were like, in the future, to have their 
choice of distinguished acquaintances, of both sexes. But 


224 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


the intellectual restraint of general society was superla- 
tively distasteful to him, and he had never departed one 
whit from the perfect existence — perfect for an artist and 
dreamer — which he had found attainable at Arden. 
Freedom without loneliness ; repose without vacancy or 
deadness ; keen and varied life enough, with stupidity and 
frivolity eliminated. Marcia waylaid their very shadows, 
that they should never have access to him. And it added 
incalculably to his love for her to feel how her aid had 
strengthened his arm, re-nerved him for conflict, stimu- 
lated and exhilarated forces that in these latter days had 
seemed overtaxed — dissipating his fears lest he should fall 
short of the achievements on which his heart was set. 

Say not that it never falls to a man to see the realization 
of his life’s dream, his life’s desire. Rarely, too rarely ; 
but it has happened, and will happen again. Then how 
few there are who are able and willing to toil out their 
lives for what, up to the end, may appear but a dream. 

The acknowledgment for which Sundorne had waited a 
quarter of a century was already his, past dispossession. 

But for those Laodiceans who were waiting for some 
overwhelming public manifestation of it to see in the 
rebel innovator of yesterday the power that is of to-morrow, 
and tender open allegiance accordingly, it came on the first 
night of the Avenport Festival, the memorable night of the 
production of Lucian and Porphyria. 

Every place, as was well known, had been taken long 
since, for the whole series of performances ; public curio- 
sity ran wild on his new work, respecting which the secret 
had been well kept ; the audience was as distinguished as 
it was numerous ; friends, foes, alike simmering with 
expectation. 

His task — he knew it — was to surpass his former 
successes, that survived as obstacles to another, by unduly 
heightening expectation and compelling redoubtable com- 
parisons. It was like beginning his career again, late, and 
heavily handicapped by virtue of past victories. 

His warmest partisans were half prepared to find in 
Lucian and Porphyria a merely meritorious work, though 
ready to swear themselves black in the face it was his 
masterpiece. 

No call, to-night, for such perjury. Once again, and 
never more signally, had he routed conjecture, hostile and 
friendly, 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


225 


He had broken new ground, woven a new spell, of the 
felicitous-enchanting order ; not the elaborate coinage of a 
practiced hand, but a fresh and beautiful jewel lighted on 
in the treasure island of his imagination — from first to last 
a surprise, delighting to the friend, disarming to the foe. 

“ His master piece,” “ Epoch making,” “ a new depar- 
ture,” “ titanic ” — like phrases sounded on all sides. The 
indiscriminate flattery showered on him this night would 
have sickened a more sensitive and delicate spirit and in- 
toxicated a weaker head. Sundorne was neither disgusted 
nor mazed by the draught. Applause had no more real 
influence upon his mind than the set of the wind. Lucia7i 
a7id Porphyria had produced an extraordinary impres- 
sion ; he s^w that and was glad. But if the house, instead 
of clapping and stamping and shouting acclamations, 
ladies weeping or waving their pocket-handkerchiefs, actors 
and actresses competing for a word of praise from his lips, 
had they been hooting and hissing, all jeering abuse of 
him and his work, he would not have thought one whit 
less of himself, or of Lucia7i a7id Porphyria. 

And Marcia, next to Sundorne himself the most ob- 
served of all observers, was deriving from the victory a joy 
sweeter in some sense than one wholly personal can 
afford. Her joy in his joy ; her pride in his pride ; the 
knowledge that she had contributed appreciably — some- 
thing said, incalculably — to this. It was a moment when 
she asked nothing further from gods nor men. 

But, woman-like, she was gladdened by the deference 
pointedly accorded her, and from unexpected quarters. 
The world was making up its mind to accept her position, 
since it must, as partly, sufficiently regular — Sundorne’s 
wife, whatever wrong might be implied by such a word. 
And now that the prospect of this satisfaction was opened, 
she knew how sorely she had wanted for it in her secret 
soul. 

The performance was late ; there followed a great 
supper, speeches, interchange of compliments ; it was 
nearly three o’clock when Sundorne’s party — which in- 
cluded Austin Day and the Mainwarings, who had taken 
a house clo'se to Arden for the week — reached home ; and 
for the first time that day Sundorne and Marcia were alone 
together. 


15 


226 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


The tug of war seemed over. The first night — the night 
of the production of his latest, greatest work — was the 
crucial test, and the result, a conquest startling even to 
the conquerors. Now the tension relaxed, Marcia felt for 
once as if her forces might collapse. 

There was no expansion between them, no falling 
into each other’s arms or intimate felicitations ; Sundorne 
would as soon thought of exuding his satisfaction, when 
alone, by jumping and shouting. She was one with him- 
self, and had shared his inner conviction that this victory 
should, must be. 

He too felt literally worn out and sank into an easy 
chair, letting Marcia help him on with his favorite dress- 
ing-gown. It cost her a heroic effort to say what she said 
next ; to suggest that he should not attend the perform- 
ance to-morrow night ; a half-hearted proposition he sum- 
marily negatived. H. R. H. was coming, and Fraficesca 
and The Beve7'l€y Minstrels always went well ; there was 
no anxiety, no troublous fears about that and the suc- 
ceeding evenings ; then by Saturday all would be over. 

“ And then,” said Marcia, with a sudden change of 
manner and a soft solicitude, “ I shall turn tyrant and 
jealous. I shall kidnap' you — carry you off to some place 
where there will be no actors nor scene-painters nor tire- 
some visitors.” 

“Yes, yes,” he said hurriedly. “We must go to Italy. 
Prince Kleinstaat has again offered me his villa at Ma- 
derno ; and I shall accept it. We will arrange to start as 
soon as all this is over.” 

They stayed talking awhile of the plan, the pleasant 
resting-place put at their disposal on the Lake of Garda ; 
a present-day castle of indolence. Marcia, traveling with 
her father, had years ago visited the spot. She described 
it to Sundorne now, and pictured their coming holiday life 
there ; the garden where the rose was never out of bloom, 
the ilex woods and gleaming white statues, the lemon 
groves and the sapphire lake. The magic of Italy, potent 
over all artistic natures, captivated their imaginations. 

There Sundorne would be able to recruit ; out of reach 
of business cares, and enticed to rest by the delicious 
idlesse those skies instil. To think of it, even, quieted 
him now. They settled all the particulars of their journey 
that night, half in sport ; what they would take with them. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


227 


how the children should follow with the nurse, how Austin 
Day should be their guest at Christmas. It was a dream ; 
but another week, and it would rest with them only to 
make it as reality. 


CHAPTER XXL 

A TALE THAT IS TOLD. 

SuNDORNE was the sole person who professed himself at a 
loss to account for the uncontested success of Lucian and 
Porphyria^ destined, unlike any previous effort of his, to 
please everybody, infinitely well, and at a first hearing. 

His enemies — he had bitter enemies still — discovered 
there a return to the principles he had scouted, and atten- 
tion to dramatic proprieties and moral conventions. They 
were lavish in praise of it, as tantamount to a recantation, 
an avowal that they were right after all. Whilst his friends 
extolled it as the most eminently characteristic of all his 
works ; and Sundorne himself had gone to work just as 
usual, unconscious that he had never been more happily, 
never quite so harmoniously inspired. 

For the passion of bitter animosity bred in him by a 
lifelong conflict with adverse fortune had partly died dur- 
ing these three years of exultant, consummate prosperity. 
Pitiless to himself, he had been implacable to others. His 
utmost longings gratified, though no more than at first 
could he take the world by a brother’s hand, it may be 
that once, regarding the problem of human life, there had 
dawned on him a new and more compassionate interpre- 
tation. 

In so much the contending parties were agreed — that 
his Festival composition was his masterpiece. The sen- 
sation created reflected a glory on the intermediate per- 
formances, stimulating the actors and whetting public 
curiosity ; leading up to the climax, the repetition of the 
new drama, that intensified the impression left by the first. 
At the close there was an outburst of that strong and gen- 
erous enthusiasm which, though we talk of the coldness of 
the North, is a product unknown in the lighter-minded 
South. 


228 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS, 


Sundorne and Marcia came out quietly ; the large crowd 
that had gathered at the side door fell back for them to 
pass, regarding them with a crowd’s cumulative interest. 
Marcia was too proud to be easily elated ; but that was a 
precious moment as he and she, seated together in the 
carriage, drove off like some popular prince, or patriot 
statesman at election time, or military hero, amid the 
cheers of a multitude delighting to honor him and her for 
his sake. 

Alone they were silent. Sundorne, effervescent up to 
the last, had suddenly calmed down, as though, in this in- 
credible consummation of his most audacious hope feve- 
rish excitement was quenched, swallowed up in a broad 
sea. Somewhat like the tired and wounded soldier too, 
first beginning to be conscious, when the field is gloriously 
won, of the loss of blood. But buoyed up by strong satis- 
faction, the sum of his sensations was pleasant as he drove ; 
Marcia beside him, radiant, young-looking, full of life that 
she prized, adored, every moment of which was of dear 
account; its trials and crosses inspiriting, its gladness 
regenerating. 

The autumn evening shades were closing in ; lulled by 
the monotonous motion of the carriage, the ferment in 
Sundorne’s brain partly subsided. Marcia’s voice sounded 
like a dream in his ears, as she said, “ Had you given the 
world Lucian and Porphyria and nothing more, it must 
have placed you where you stand to-night.’’ He smiled 
faintly, seemingly too tired to speak. Marcia thought how 
well inspired she had been to get rid of their Arden guests, 
all of whom, even Austin Day, had left by train after the 
theatre. For a few hours at least they would be to them- 
selves. 

Never had Arden looked so fair in her eyes as now on 
their return, a fit shrine for blessed memories and exquisite 
hopes ; her portion now and to come. The cedars on the 
lawn said “ Welcome,” and waved their arms ; the odor 
of the flowers was like incense. The two children were 
playing about the doorsteps and ran to meet them, eager 
to kiss Marcia’s joyous face. Sundorne put his hand on 
the girl’s fair curls. 

“ He is tired,” said Marcia quickly. Run to Anna and 
tell her to bring up dinner now.” 

Sundorne was relieved to get home, out of the whirl that 
had made him giddy. Sitting in his old chair by the hearth 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


229 


where a wood fire was burning, he was the picture of con- 
tent. Marcia would have sent the children out of the way, 
but he would not let her ; he liked to have them there — as 
he liked flowers on the table. 

Marcia was distressed that he scarcely touched dinner. 
Her most artful care could not tempt appetite to-night. 
But after such a week as this last, the law of reaction must 
have its way. Was she hungry herself? And his mood 
was angelic ; he promised to see his doctor to-morrow, to 
please her ; though there was no need, for he felt better, 
well, in fact already. And he looked well ; like one just 
released from a heavy strain, who is slowly returning to his 
normal condition. 

After the children had gone to bed he remained awhile 
by the fire enjoying the miraculous peace and rest ; talking 
little ; but his unquiet spirit appeased by listening to Mar- 
cia, who, seated on a low stool at his feet, dwelt on their 
future, their coming long holiday from life at high pressure 
in England, a thought to lay hold of to-night as on a 2:)lank 
of salvation. 

Italy ! Italy ! there was that villa by the blue lake wait- 
ing for them. They would travel thither by easy stages, 
and under the magic influence of change and of the sooth- 
ing southern climate fresh ideas would be born to him under 
a fortunate star. He drank in the sound of her voice ; but 
once or twice it seemed as though he did not hear what 
she was saying. 

At least he did not insist on sitting up late. A wakeful 
night passed, and the morning found him unwell still and 
weak : but he preferred to rise, to walk out even, saying he 
wanted the air. They would breakfast later, in the pavi- 
lion in the wood, as was his fancy now and then. 

He had taken his morning coffee as usual ; and even 
Marcia’s exaggerated solicitude was becoming gradually 
allayed. She had seen him thus once or twice before, after 
a trying period of mental exertion, and the temporary 
physical infirmity done good by enforcing the repose he 
never sought. She noticed that he leaned rather heavily 
on her arm as they sauntered to the pavilion ; but though 
the little walk tired him oddly, he seemed restored from 
all discomfort by the out-door air ; and, best sign of all ; 
mentally alive and active again. He reclined on the couch, 
she sat beside him, and they talked of yesterday. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


^30 

Of the artistic triumph, the enthusiasm, intoxicating 
even to recall. Evanescent things, these. But though 
the very memory of the actors might pass away, and the 
festival never be repeated, the fruits of the work done 
would abide. The slip had been planted, grown, and mul- 
tiplied, from which a whole forest might spring. 

Then Marcia began in a lighter tone : 

“Anna brought me a pile of letters of congratulation, 
that high.” 

She opened and read aloud a few that she thought might 
please or amuse him. 

“ The Prince of Kleinstaat wishes to let you know that 
you have given him a great deal of pleasure. The princess 
joins with him in congratulating you on the result of the 
Festival, and they invite you to come and stay at Highwood 
Castle, next season, to fish.” 

“ Cecil Mainwaring is ‘ desolated,* his wife writes to 
say, that he was much too ill to attend the performance yes- 
terday afternoon. She thinks it was the excitement did it ; 
he is quite laid up, and they had to telegraph for the doc- 
tor.” 

“ Miss Theresa St. John sends all the flowers in her green- 
house, and implores for your portrait, with your autograph 
underneath.” 

And they laughed as she went on with the budget, which 
contained other complimentary matter of a really amazing 
sort. Marcia’s vivacity of manner was communicative. 
Weak and languid at first, Sundorne was stimulated to ani- 
mation, and talked like himself, his new self. The old vin- 
dictiveness and intolerance seemed to have suddenly 
dropped from him ; his mind had mounted to heights 
where such merely personal sentiments cannot range. 

Apart from all that trash of human flattery and praise — 
the small change for human ambition — his was an infinite 
satisfaction ; the sense of a grand revenge taken on the 
world for its contumelies, its stupidity. Nothing less com- 
plete and signal could have appeased his rancor, drowned 
his hostility to opposing forces he could not destroy, recon- 
ciled him with mankind, by raising him above it. 

May it be that in this hour of splendid and legitimate 
self-exaltation, of supreme conquest, gratified heart’s desire, 
and that stirring hope of indefinite progress to planes still 
higher that never deserts the true artist, he was smitten by 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


231 


a stab of regret — not remorse, if it imply a wish to recall a 
remorseless deed — the knowledge that he had snatched 
from another’s life the light that had transfigured his own ? 

If so, it only showed itself in a strange softening of his 
manner towards Marcia j a rare touch of human tenderness, 
compassionate almost; something she could half wish away. 
It was the one thing that could unnerve her, and Sundorne’s 
partner should never be unnerved. 

But his mind, his life-energy, were all with the future, 
with uncreated work — old, stray ideas that had beset him 
again since the completion of Lucian and Porphyria : 
but he complained that he could not snatch them, as it 
were, out of the shadowy distance. 

“ You lie on the grass,” he said musingly, “ and ideas 
pass by overhead, like a flock of rare white birds. Then 
one flies down into your hand — and you have taken it, the 
wonder creature ! ” 

“ It is yours,” said Marcia. “ In Italy it will tell you 
its story, when and how you will.” 

Once more she spoke of how before the November chills 
set in they would take flight, as the swallows had done 
already, to the land of rest and of beauty ; then, the winter 
sped, return to Arden in the time of lilacs. 

“ Did you order breakfast ? ” he asked suddenly. It was 
for eleven o’clock. Marcia thought he seemed faint. She 
looked at her watch. It was half-past ten. 

“ It should be ready now,” she said. 

“ Go in and tell them to bring it — that we are waiting.” 

It was a good sign that he should ask for it ; yet Marcia, 
in her over-solicitude, was loth to leave him, even for a 
moment. The children were indoors ; the servants might 
not hear if she called. The important thing was that he 
should not have to wait. 

“ Yes,” she said, and went quickly through the wood 
and up the garden into the house, and having given the 
order, bethought her of bringing him out a glass of wine. 
The stopper of the decanter gave her some trouble to move, 
delaying her a few minutes. Then she hastened back, 
slackening her pace as she neared the pavilion not to flurry 
or annoy him by show of anxiety. 

Since she left him he had moved from the couch into the 
chair she had vacated by the table, and she came in sight 
of him thus, leaning his elbow on the table, his head on 
his hand. 


232 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


Memory plays the mind a jade’s trick now and then. 
Association, as her eyes caught his figure, instantaneously, 
electrically had flashed on her an involuntary reminiscence 
— of a scene, a night in a London garden, and a past behind 
— like a corpse stirring in its grave. Away with it. Marcia 
was neither unfeeling nor forgetful ; but what was that 
black page in her history she had torn out and flung to the 
winds which now blew it back to her feet ? She trod it 
down. Her life began that night when they two first dared 
to speak the truth to each other — she and Sundorne, her 
sovereign, her beloved, beside whose mastery and love the 
rest was nothing ; he who was waiting for her to renovate 
him for fresh ventures, fresh delights. 

She quickened her tread a little ; her robe. rustled lightly. 
He was dozing, or he would have lifted his head at her 
footstep. Marcia paused on the threshold of the pavilion. 

“ Anna will bring the breakfast directly,” she said, “and 
I have brought this, lest ” 

She stopped, as he made no sign. Asleep. Well, no 
wonder. But he ought not to sleep on in an exhausted 
condition, nor could he rest many minutes in that upright 
attitude. 

Approaching, she laid her hand lightly on his. Something 
in the contact, though the hand was nearly as warm as her 
own, struck a sharp disquietude. 

His elbow relaxed, his head sank, he would have fallen 
forwards but for the quick support of her arm. His head 
fell back and she saw his face. Its paleness sent a chill, 
a piercing pain through her body. 

Fainted. Oh, help ! Marcia uplifted her voice, but to 
her horror, it was dumb ; only a hoarse, broken sound 
came. Her will and soul battled with this weakness. She 
— Marcia — nervously overcome, paralyzed by apprehen- 
sion at a moment when presence of mind was imperative, 
whenSundorne’s health — life — might depend on her prompt 
action ? 

‘That very instant her voice rang through the wood with 
a penetrating force that brought Anna running to the spot. 
Meanwhile Marcia had remembered that there was a me- 
dical man close at hand. Through the servants she had 
heard that Dr. Blake had arrived last night in answer to 
Mainwaring’s summons. The house was within a quarter 
of a mile \ he might not yet have left. God be thanked 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


233 


for it. She had collected herself, and Anna found her 
trying ineffectually to force Sundorne to swallow a few 
drops of the stimulant she had brought. In a word she 
told the servant what to do. 

Anna, with a quick scared look from Marcia to the insen- 
sible form of her master, darted off as directed, out at the 
gate, and up the road to the lodge-entrance to Mainwaring’s 
grounds. His carriage was just passing out at the gates, 
with a gentleman inside whom she guessed to be the one 
she came to seek, starting for the station. She stopped 
the carriage, breathless and panting, and hurriedly, inco- 
herently delivered her summons. 

Dr. Blake, who had dismounted to listen, heard her with 
a frown, and stood looking dubious and unmoved. 

“ Your master ill? ” he said coldly. “ You had better 
send in to town for his regular attendant. Dr. Brown, I 
suppose.” 

“ He is coming — but he cannot be here for- an hour — 
he will be too late,” urged the terrified girl, mysteriously 
infected by Marcia’s panic, and half beside herself with 
impatience at his stolidity and unreadiness to comply. 
“ What, you can go your way — you, a doctor — and our 
master dying? ” 

Dr. Blake was used to the scared ways of nervous maid- 
servants, and scouted her sensational alarms, but he felt the 
was caught. He cursed the chance that had brought him 
hither ; still, private considerations — the strongest — must 
give way to plain professional duty — the least- — though a 
more distasteful instance could not have been devised for 
him by a grotesque fate. 

“ Send again instantly for Dr. Brown,” he said. “ In the 
meantime I will come and see.” 

Secure of the physician, the girl’s irrational fears as 
irrationally abated. He followed her into the grounds of 
Arden, through the wood, towards the pavilion, with in- 
conceivable reluctance. To have to consent to cross that 
lawn, tread that domain, put off his journey, lose his train 
— to do a service to Marcia and her paramour ! A 
settled, hard repugnance spoke in his aspect. At the 
sight of Marcia, chafing the hands of Sundorne, who was 
still insensible, he revolted ; but he must go through with 
it, and as he came up, her acute eagerness penetrated him 
somewhat, in his own despite. 


234 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


One glance at Snndorne’s face, then at Marcia’s fiercely 
anxious but utterly unsuspecting countenance, and a con- 
sternation, for which he was wholly unprepared, took hold 
of him. A dim awful presage of impending calamity had 
stimulated certain of her faculties and benumbed others. 
The world was momentarily narrowed for her; and she 
met and addressed Dr. Blake as though he were a stranger 
unconnected with her life before this hour. The sight of 
him had roused in her no feeling whatever but one of wild 
impatience for his diagnosis. 

“ He has fainted,” she said. “ Quick ! you can give 
him this. I cannot, my hand shakes so.” 

“ Fainted,” Dr. Blake repeated mechanically. He had 
seated himself beside Sundorne’s inanimate figure, placing 
his finger on the pulse ; but it was Marcia he watched 
furtively. 

“ Only a faint,” she repeated, and the doctor assented 
with a sign of his head. 

“ Should we not carry him indoors ? ” she asked more 
quietly. 

“ No — yes — presently,” returned Dr. Blake, his ordinary 
presence of mind at fault, but helping her to lay him on 
the couch. 

“ Well? ” pursued Marcia rapidly. “Is not ether the 
best thing? What must I do? I have everything in- 
doors.” 

Dr. Blake avoided her gaze ; her vehemence confused 
him ; the sudden horror of the situation oppressed him, 
and his clumsy self-expression — nonplussed as he felt in 
reality — was hard and cruel in the seeming. His inertia 
appalled Marcia, now when every moment must be of con- 
sequence — drove her desperate ; she thought she accounted 
for it. 

“ Robert,” she said. “Robert Blake.” 

And his name from her lips had broken the spell, and 
they looked at each other, as enemies look. Then Marcia’s 
eyes dilated, her features altered, she faced him with a 
flash of rage, goaded to extremity and madness. 

“ You will do nothing, you refuse to help,” she said 
hoarsely, “because — because of me; Sundorne is ill, and 
you — you have come here to stand by and tell me you will 
not assist. Assassin ! Assassin ! ” 

“ Marcia,” he interposed, shocked by her violence, 
“ you are beside yourself.” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


235 


“ I am. Oh, forgive me,” she entreated, with a plead- 
ing as passionate as her anger, and speaking with an 
unnatural rapidity of utterance as she chafed the hand 
that grew colder in her grasp. “ Mad ? How could I 
not be — with him ill and senseless ? Can’t you see that I 
am wild with fear ; that I don’t know what to do, and you 
will not tell me. He is so strong ; he will recover by-and- 
by. There must be something you can do for him. I 
know you cannot forgive me. Well, slay me, but help him 

— Sundorne. If you knew how good he is — how ” 

her voice died, but she knelt before the poor doctor in 
insensate entreaty. 

“ Marcia,” he urged, raising her forcibly, “ control your- 
self” 

“ It is that you will not help,” she exclaimed, with a 
flame of ferocity in her eyes. “You would let him die, 
like the pitiful wretch that you are. You do not care 
though you take this worst of all crimes upon you. You 
will not save life — the one life you would destroy.” 

“ It is that I cannot,” said Robert, with the brutality of 
rough nature in a hopeless emergency ; “ the man is dead.” 

He started at a cry, not loud, but so strange and inhu- 
man that involuntarily he looked round as though it must 
have come from strange lips. His animosity, his right- 
eous indignation were quelled ; there was no feeling in him 
now but pity for the wretched woman there ; she who an 
hour ago would not have changed places with the queen 
of heaven. The passion she had made her god, the wor- 
ship that had absorbed her intelligence, her whole being, 
rose up in monstrous revolt, as though to force the gates 
of death and snatch back the stolen heart and life. She 
knelt by the couch where he lay ; she encircled his head 
with her arms, drawing it nearer to the breast where it had 
lain a thousand times, murmuring half audibly, incohe- 
rently, in the fiery, caressing tones he liked — tongues of 
flame, kindling, life-imparting, revealing : 

“ Sundorne — mine — beloved — look ! It is I — it is Mar- 
cia,” and she kissed the eyes, the lips as though she would 
transfuse her own life into them, repeating wildly, 
“ They would kill you — let you die — she would help. 
Take my life, my breath — it is all yours.” Her arms 
twined round him, clinging like the living thing to the sea- 
shell, from which to be torn is to die miserably. 


236 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


Abruptly raising her head, and showing an upturned 
face whiter than the dead’s, and eyes of nameless terror, 
she spoke with a laugh and smile that struck ghastily on 
him she addressed : Robert, you only said that to tor- 
ture me, I know. I deserve your hate ; but not this, not 
this.” 

And her head drooped on Sundorne’s, and she clung 
closer to the idolized image. Image indeed, for a stranger 
feeling, a hideous thing of prey, creeping up, took hold of 
her and struck its fangs home, telling her, “ This is not 
he — not Sundorne, your love and king, your deity. His 
spirit has forsaken you ; the mould it informed is vanish- 
ing fast — fast. Even as you clasp them the limbs stiffen 
that were yours yesterday to delight with your embracing ; 
the eyes’ light is out ; and over the lips yours are clasping 
has stolen an expression strange even to you — of an in- 
communicable experience in which you have no part. 
That is all you have left. Sundorne — your Sundorne — 
the power you served, for whose great sake your soul 
charged itself with the murder of another, has left you for 
ever. He is not.” 

Dr. Brown arrived at this moment. They disengaged 
Marcia from her fond, unreturned embrace. Her con- 
dition was terrible to witness, even to those two men, 
inured to such scenes. Her uncommon strength, her 
great and practiced endurance now denied her the relief of 
unconsciousness or tender bewailing. Tears came not ; 
her wild appeals had ceased ; but it was almost as if you 
could see the indelible work of the ravages of grief begun 
on her countenance, grief beyond attenuation or solace. 

Dr. Brown in attendance, Robert Blake felt at liberty to 
go ; he had pressing London engagements. Then at the 
very moment of leaving the house he felt himself suddenly 
so overcome, that he went back into the empty drawing- 
room, to sit for a minute or two and recover his self-pos- 
session ; his india-rubber nerves had been thoroughly 
shaken by the painful scene. 

Dr. Brown, whom he had left with Marcia, came hurry- 
ing in. 

“ Glad not to find you gone,” he said. “ Will you tele- 
graph for her father, Austin Day. He should be here.” 

“ Certainly.” That he had never thought of this him- 
self was a proof of his discomposure, 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


237 


He rose to leave, he passed through the dining-room, 
where lay the trophies, the flowers, laurels, testimonials of 
triumph, lavished on the head that only the turf would 
cover in a day or two. Fortune’s freak thus to cut him off 
in his zenith, as though she held these tributes insufficient, 
and knew there is nothing like death for vitalizing a great 
name, and extending a new human influence. 

The door was open of an inner room, where the dead 
gladiator lay. His face scarcely pleasant to look on in 
life, to those apart from him, repelled by its arrogance, 
iingeniality, disdain of common human sympathy, death 
had clothed in a stern and unearthly nobility that was not 
beauty, but that included it. 

Dr. Blake, an alien in every sense, and to whom the fact 
of his decease was no cause for any sentiment but unowned 
content, drawn to go in and look, was impressed by reveal- 
ing change. 

As though the dross of human passion, fallen from him 
at the moment that life’s combat ended, had left in this 
lofty composure and spiritual majesty the true reflection 
of the great soul, its last message to its fellow-creatures — 
the potency of mind ; the dauntless aspirations of the 
heaven-taught poet, maker, artist, the most imperfect mem- 
ber of human society. In death he remained the poet- 
hero alone. 

Like a ghost Marcia glided in ; she seemed not to see 
Robert Blake, as she sank into her place by the dead. The 
presence of her grief awed him like the death-presence 
itself. With bent head he passed out. 

As the door of that house shut behind him for the first 
and last time, he felt that to-day, Wilfrid, his brother was 
avenged. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

THE SEQUEL. 

The newspaper columns that day were filled with florid 
accounts of the Dramatic Week at Avenport and its extra- 
ordinary success. Royalty and fashion had led the way, 
apd th^ ot)edient multitude vieti who should most heartily 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


238 

follow their lead. A carping protest here and there was 
only the last kick and groan of a vanquished and expiring 
opposition. 

Wilfrid, who had dined alone at Brook Street, took up 
a paper before starting for the theatre, and read through 
the reporter’s gushing panegyric on the Avenport Festival 
to the last word. Nothing could exceed the extravagant, 
obsequious eulogies there heaped upon Sundorne, not so 
many years ago a laughing-stock to the wise, treated much 
as street boys would treat a fantastic lunatic, to-day exalted 
as the dramatist whom “ the England of the future — unless 
the reign of the common place was to triumph — would 
acknowledge as one of the glories of a glorious century,” 
and much more to the same effect. 

Carroll passed on to the analysis of Lucian and Por- 
phyria^ his apprehension quick enough to seize its leading 
merits. Here was no overpraise, his judgment whispered. 
It was impossible. 

It was nearly six when Dr. Blake returned. His wife, 
who had expected him hours ago, met him in the hall with 
anxious questions provoked by his disturbed face. 

“ Nothing is the matter,” he said absently. “ 1 was 
kept — called to see a man who died very suddenly. It gave 
me a shock. Wilfrid — where is he? Not gone out yet, I 
hope ? ” 

Mrs. Blake’s face clouded. Always Wilfrid first. “ He 
is in there,” she said, pointing to the dining-room. “ He 
dined at home.” 

And Robert walked in after him at once, shutting the 
door, leaving his spouse speechless with annoyance at his 
conjugal rudeness. Should she follow ? Curiosity drew 
her on, but dignity said. No, and she stayed debating. 

Wilfrid let fall the newspaper as his brother entered. 

“ Well, where do you hail from ? ” he asked languidly. 

From Avenport,” said Dr. Blake. “ I was telegraphed 
for by Mainwaring, you know — and I was detained ” 

“By the pageant?” struck in Wilfrid ironically. “You 
saw some of it ? Why, you look as if it had been too much 
for you, as it seems to have been for the nation, if print 
can be trusted,” signifying the penny paper. “ It is really 
bewildering. What fresh honors, fresh rewards, can England 
next invent, I wonder, to offer to this latest idol — her newly- 
anointed divinity — to Sundorne ? ” 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS, 


239 


Here he stopped, struck by the alteration in his brother’s 
mostly invariable countenance. Dr. Blake, harassed and 
fatigued, threw himself into a chair, meeting Wilfrid’s tirade 
with a dead silence. 

“ Let England offer all she has got,” he said at length, 
with glance averted and downcast, “ Sundorne can take 
no more from her now than six foot of earth for a grave. 
He died this morning.” 

Raising his eyes presently, he saw Wilfrid regarding 
him with a stupefied expression ; it changed slowly to a 
fixed, moody stare. And, as in sarcastic incredulity, the 
exclamation escaped him : 

“Can Sundorne die? ” 

“ It was terribly sudden,” said Robert, brushing his hand 
over his forehead. He would have liked to brush away 
the haunting recollection of Marcia’s face. He felt that 
for the first time he had seen despair. “ I happened to be 
just leaving Mainwaring’s, and was summoned, after the 
occurrence.” 

Here Mrs. Robert Blake came in, her curiosity all agog. 
Something unusual was passing ; she ought to know what. 
Dr. Blake was uncomfortably reminded how, in his pre- 
occupation, he had stupidly lost his head when he came 
in, and had not given her her cue. To stop her from 
speaking, he spoke in haste. 

“ I have been startled — as all London will be to-morrow 
— by the tidings of the very sudden death of Arthur Sun- 
dorne.” 

“ Dead ! ” 

In his prime — cut off in the flower of his triumph, the 
flush of honor well-nigh royal, with the threshold of old 
age uncrossed. Mrs. Robert Blake joined her hands. To 
her the event conveyed but one possible impression, one 
significance. A judgment. Heaven’s visitation on his 
head and on Marcia’s. The sense of righteous retribution, 
of vindicated propriety, was an awful gratification. 

Something to this effect she brought out, in her sim- 
plicity. Her husband looked at her, unjustly wrathful 
that she would not take the hint he was too clumsy to 
know how to give — to hold her tongue. Wilfrid turned 
away and walked out of the room, out of the house. Then 
recollecting that he was already due at the theatre, he 
caught at the enforced distraction, the necessity for exert- 
ing himself. 


240 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


His acting, everybody knew, was becoming more and 
more unequal, varying with the conditions of his health, 
which lying to a great extent in his own hands — the least 
trustworthy — had of late scarcely allowed his poor brother 
a happy moment. Twice or thrice he had failed to ap- 
pear; a disappointed public is unlikely to put the most 
charitable interpretation on such defalcations, which 
gloomily impressed his warmest admirers. He was losing 
his perfect control of his voice and manner. They per- 
ceived how his constitution, undermined by that severe 
illness following on domestic trouble, was breaking down, 
and consigned him to premature decrepitude or the grave. 
The ill-disposed were equally certain that it was reckless 
intemperance which was sending him fast to the devil. 
Neither statements were without foundation ; and another 
dire little fact was known to himself alone, though sus- 
pected by his brother, namely, that to elude the torments 
of neuralgia and insomnia, to which he was increasingly 
subject, he had had recourse to one of the most hurtful of 
those patented slow poisons that offer themselves as 
miracle-working anodyne or narcotic, and was already 
under the baneful spell of the habit. Trifling annoyances 
assumed giant proportions. He was violently unjust and 
irritable to his best friends, giving mortal offence, and 
seriously damaging his reputation, both as an artist and as 
a member of society. Then he had returns of his old 
power and personal charm unclouded, and surpassed him- 
self, and all seemed forgotten and forgiven. But such 
flashes were becoming rarer, and those who watched him 
narrowly and without the tender partizanship that sealed 
Bertha’s eyes to the meaning of much that was passing, 
could mark a confirmed downward tendency fatally accele- 
rated by the accompanying loss of self-esteem — something 
which might at the shortest notice make him bankrupt in 
mind, body, and estate. The divine Carroll, disappearing, 
would make himself heard of no more, leaving his name to 
the stain of notorious disgrace or merciful oblivion. 

His acting that night was tolerably level. One feature 
of his decline, of which he was disagreeably aware, was 
that a ridiculous susceptibility to trifles went along with a 
growing callousness to grave events. The tragic news 
was spreading, but everybody’s first instinct was to treat 
the report as a canard. 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS, 


241 


“ Can Sundorne die ? ” 

Such a thought rose up intuitively in the mind of Austin 
Day when Dr. Blake’s telegram was brought to him. He 
was deeply shocked, and started at once for Arden, which 
he reached in a few hours. 

The sight of him was the first thing that brought home 
to Marcia a full sense of the reality of her disaster. 
Hitherto there had been something of a ghastly halluci- 
nation in what she was passing through. Every tree in 
the garden, every piece of furniture in the house, was so 
inextricably, so exclusively associated with Sundorne in 
her mind, that the persistent consciousness of his living 
presence pervading the place lived on in her as strong as 
before. After her father’s arrival, whose old familiar face 
dragged out childish reminiscences of times before Sun- 
dorne existed for her, slowly, inexorably the deadly know- 
ledge was stamped in — that their union, which once 
existed not, existed no more. As, when realizing the 
eternity of time before your birth, the sense of your im- 
mortality, as a necessary thing, may perish within you. 

Austin Day was inexpressibly anxious about his daugh- 
ter. Her state of mind was alarming in a high degree ; 
but he reminded himself that it could not possibly be 
otherwise, after so terrible a blow. He sent the children 
away to Surrey Lodge. The awful gloom of the house 
was bad for them, and Marcia was far beyond deriving 
solace from their presence. Once more, as in the old 
time, she and he were alone together. 

He had dreaded the funeral day for her; but in the 
already reached extremity of her desolation and distress 
she was past the influence of mournful ceremonies. What 
were the consignment to earth of those cold ashes, more 
than the burial of a picture, a statue? In a small plot of 
ground railed off from the rest of the old graveyard behind 
the Manor garden wall they were laid, under the trees 
which should one day shelter hers also, beneath whose 
shade they had stood together living. 

That evening Austin Day said to himself with a sigh 
that the worst must be over. 

Marcia was lying down in her room ; she had never lost 
consciousness in sleep since the dreadful morning of 
calamity, but to-night her brain seemed half stupefied with 
th^ strain of grief and physical exhaustion. Her father 


242 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


left her, slumbering as he thought, in her darkened cham- 
ber, and went to talk with the doctor downstairs. 

The professional man reassured his paternal uneasiness. 
Marcia’s was an exceptionally strong and well-balanced 
organism. She was in a high fever, but the grief that had 
caused it was bound to wear itself out ; then the disturbing 
symptoms would abate. And there was not a single un- 
sound spot in her constitution, no lurking taint or infirmity 
to be quickened by mental distress into the germ of active 
danger. Her trial would not leave her as it found her, the 
traces of what she was now suffering would remain on her 
for her life ; but she was no frail creature, to sink, broken 
physically, under the very worst that adversity can inflict. 
In power of suffering she was like to prove herself, as for- 
merly in activity, above other women. 

The two men walked out to smoke in the garden, and 
strolled thence into the wood, Sundorne’s favorite resort, 
which, it appeared to Austin Day also, must be permanent- 
ly haunted by the inhabiting shadow of the dead man, the 
living poet. 

It was a relief to him to have a companion to talk to, the 
more commonplace the more welcome, just then. 

“ No, I myself can hardly take it in,” he confessed. 
“ Sundorne, my junior by ever so many years. I never 
suspected there was anything amiss. It seems as if it ought 
not to have happened. Syncope, you say, he died of. 
Most of us do, I suppose. But what caused it ? Was there 
anything radically wrong ? ” 

“ I examined him once last year, for a slight affection of 
the heart, but found nothing then to warrant special 
anxiety. He might very well have lived to be old, as it 
threatened no danger necessarily. Overwork did it. At 
some recent time, I should say the months preceding this 
Festival, he has been spurred to ultra exertion, so buoyed 
up by excitement and satisfaction as to be insensible to the 
effect of the strain, stimulated by ambition to dangerous, to 
fatal effort. You might almost say that accident brought 
about the death — the accidental coincidence of circum- 
stances ; their action was too violent not to be dangerous to 
a temporarily weakened system. A slight disturbance at a 
critical moment turned the balance the wrong way, or he 
might have been all right again in a few days,” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


243 

It was getting dark in the wood ; they stepped out of it 
and paced the lawn, under the sitting-room windows. 

“ He should have thrown up work six or eight months 
ago,” resumed Esculapius, “gone abroad, rested, recruited, 
and he would be here now, for another twenty years, I 
daresay. I recommended it, but no sign was then appa- 
rent that the need was so pressing as, alas, it was proved. 
That was beyond human foresight. I could merely advise. 
Most men do as he did, disregard slight premonitory 
symptoms, persist till it is too late. He killed himself with 
overwork. Rest would undoubtedly have saved him, but 
who could have forced him to take it ? Not I, who was 
not even sent for — Eh, what was that ? ” 

Both looked up, startled by a suppressed cry from the 
house ; it seemed to float through the open windows of the 
lower room. They stood listening. Silent, all. 

“ Where is she ? ” asked the physician. 

“ I left her upstairs in her room, I hoped, sleeping.” 

Half an hour ago. Marcia dreamt she was in hell, and 
woke to find it true. But she had had no actual sleep, 
whilst she lay dull and prostrate ; nor was she fully awake 
when she rose, and, goaded aimlessly about by a direful 
restlessness, staggered downstairs and lay awhile on the sofa 
in the drawing-room, to hear presently, through the open 
window. Dr. Smith’s statement. That awakened her ; 
every word went straight to sharpened ears, and their sense 
pierced like cruel knife-thrusts into a heart already mortally 
wounded. 

For she knew more than they ; and it flashed on her now 
that she, and only she, might have saved him — and she 
had held her hand. 

That accursed ambition ! The luring light of the glory 
that the full accomplishment of the Festival project would 
shed on his name — hers now — had blinded her reason, her 
instincts. She had incited him to strain his powers to ex- 
cess ; tempted him on by every means in her power ; helped 
to make it possible, easy, pleasant for him to kill him- 
self. But for her he might have thrown up the affair last 
w'inter — with vexation of spirit, no doubt — to take his 
revenge later on. But she could not wait. She had min- 
istered to his pride, his impatience, his unbounded self- 
confidence. She, who could do more with him than 
any one, had used her influence to his destroying. The 


244 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


one whose heart and life were broken over his tomb might 
know that she had hastened him thither. 

Until then Marcia had believed that she had reached 
the extreme limit of mortal suffering. She felt then as 
though she had never really suffered till now. Her father, 
returning presently, found her in a condition verging on 
delirium, and for many days that followed she was utterly 
prostrate with fever and physical disturbance. 

But she never betrayed what she had overheard ; and 
her father never suspected it. As was inevitable, in her 
passionate distress and retrospective solicitude, she ex- 
aggerated to herself the responsibility, the self-reproach 
she had incurred, and which another in her place might 
plausibly have disclaimed altogether. Sundorne was wil- 
ful and obstinate. Possibly, indeed, her influence might 
have failed to alter the course of events ; but she knew in 
what direction it had been exerted, and that the conscious- 
ness of it would prey on her to the end of her life. 

Austin Day took her away, as soon as she could be 
moved, to the old house by the river. By-and-by she was 
well enough to have the children with her, though it was not 
yet that she could be soothed or cheered by any outward 
thing, even they. They were scarcely realities to her in 
those days. The natural feeling was crushed. She was 
alive to them as thmgs that Sundorne had been fond of. 

Sundorne’s will was simple. He had left everything he 
had to Marcia, absolutely, unconditionally. She was rich, 
according to the artist’s standard. 


CHAPTER XXHI. 

A QUESTION. 

Six months later and Dr. Blake’s troubles had reached a 
climax. The burden was doubly grievous for having to be 
kept to himself. 

A plain, practical man, here was he racked and torn 
asunder by conflicting duties and affections just like any 
sensitive, imaginative woman. Anything for a quiet 
life,” was the motto of his nature ; yet behold him, by his 
deliberate choice, embarked on a stormy domestic sea ; his 


famous Ok liStFAMOVS, 


^4S 

model wife turned to a Xantippe, making scenes, telling 
him he must “ choose between Wilfrid and her.” Worst 
of all, there was no denying that she was more than justified 
in her complaints ; to which Robert must have yielded but 
for his increasing apprehensions on his brother’s account, 
sharpening his reluctance to abandon the frail hold he 
fancied he retained over him whilst under the same roof. 
Unconscious jealousy of Wilfrid, whom the good woman 
could not forgive for holding a place in Robert’s affections 
that led him to consider him before her and the children, 
dulled her compassion and embittered her judgment in 
reviewing conduct that only great forbearance could treat 
tolerantly. 

Wilfrid, accustomed to have everything his own way, 
chafed angrily under the inevitable hitches that arose, as 
though the fault lay with his hosts. Ere long Mrs. Blake 
was well convinced that no pecuniary advantage could 
atone to her and her children for the daily annoyances 
involved ; and though Robert pretended to make light of 
them, his good sense must secretly concur. Still he per- 
sisted. His extraordinary good-nature, his patience with 
the excesses of Wilfrid’s abominable temper, from which, 
being constantly busy, he had less to suffer than any one, 
his leniency towards his irregularities, testifying to his un- 
dying partiality for this mauvais siijet^ inflamed poor Mrs. 
Blake’s dislike. Her cup was full. She had borne more 
than could be expected of any woman not a Griseldis. If 
her husband insisted in retaining in the house and making 
master of it one whom she had ample reason for regarding 
as half a madman and wholly a profligate, she, for her 
children’s sake, must rebel. Thus poor Robert found 
himself thrust into the part of the tyrannical husband, 
making his wife’s life a burden to her ; a wife he could 
reproach for nothing, except a lack of blind fondness for 
the most troublesome inmate that ever destroyed the even 
tenor of a happy family, or disturbed conjugal under- 
standing. 

“ What the deuce is to be done ? ” was the refrain of 
the doctor’s brain in every moment of leisure. When 
he had expressed plainly to his helpmate the mournful 
anticipations, founded on his medical experience, that 
molested him — urging this as a reason for bearing with the 
actor’s intolerable whims and humors, thus inducing him to 


2^6 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


keep at least one foot out of the mire — she remarked per- 
tinently that she could not see that his residence with them 
had exercised any beneficial effect on his conduct, which 
on the contrary was getting steadily worse. That her 
existence should be made miserable was of no consequence, 
of course, but it was a wrong done to the children to 
expose them to the degrading spectacle. Alas, it was. 
Wilfrid had repeatedly threatened to leave ; then Robert 
had got him to remain, by urging him as a favor to himself. 

Next time,” he thought, “ I shall have to take him at his 
word — submit to loose sight of him — let him go to the devil 
in his own way.” 

The crisis did not keep him waiting long. Fresh griev- 
ances arose, Wilfrid as usual in the wrong — the house in a 
turmoil, the children bedeviled, servants demoralized, the 
mistress for once provoked into speaking her mind to the 
offender, who retaliated with unpardonable violence of 
language — insulting her before the children, the servants 
— wishing heaven knows what to himself if he stayed 
another day under one roof with her tongue. This time 
when the story was poured into Robert’s ears, and Wilfrid 
gave notice to quit, he accepted it in silence. He had 
done all he could ; his wife had been sacrificed long enough ; 
Wilfrid must depart. In a few weeks he was going for a 
short tour in the provinces. It was understood that he 
would not return to Brook Street. 

For the interval there was a calm — a truce. 

One night Robert accompanied him to the theatre. He 
had lately been provoked to the sharpest admonition, told 
him with frank brutality that, among other things, he was fast 
becoming as good as a morphiomaniac, and that if he went 
on playing the idiot any longer, and did not at once hold 
back, and re-establish his life on some other principle but 
that of easy but ignoble self-indulgence, he would soon be 
a far more wretched object than that torso of a beggar in 
the street. His plain-speaking had made some impression, 
he thought. Wilfrid had loudly professed the most laud- 
able intentions ; and certainly his flow of more even spirits, 
his happier temper to-day, suggested that he had perhaps 
kept his word. And Robert’s ineradicable affection, which 
had been rudely shaken by the deterioration in his brother’s 
character which had disgusted Mrs. Blake with him, revived, 
and along with it the hope that his health, his life, his good 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS 


247 


name might yet not be forfeit after all. And his perform- 
ance that night was excellent. Wilfrid, haunted by the 
knowledge that he was going off, miserably conscious of 
growing defects — an inability to rise to the occasion forcing 
him to resort to exaggeration of emphasis and gesture, 
nature no longer responding with her spontaneous, ever 
fresh revelations — knowing better than any one the narrow 
escapes, the lapses of memory, of intelligence — amounting 
sometimes to a momentary incapacity to perceive exterior 
objects — of presence of mind, now not uncommon with 
him, was miraculously soothed and inspirited by his brilliant 
success and the confidence of having well earned it. He 
drove home with his brother in high feather, and with such 
a return of his old manner, old looks, and way of talking 
that Robert, whilst rejoicing at it, was pained by a sense of 
their sad unfamiliarity. 

“ Bertha beats Verena Courtney hollow as Parthenia,” 
said the doctor suddenly. 

“ She does indeed,” Wilfrid chimed in cordially. “ That 
her under-study should have been called for has been a 
chance that has served her well. It is only when there is 
a poetic idea, an imaginative sentiment to inspire her, that 
her powers really come out. Poor Jim Courtney is more 
in love with her than ever. They say he proposes to her 
once a quarter ; but you never saw so shy and stand-offish 
a girl. She won’t hear of him in that capacity, nor of any 
one of them, for that matter. I wonder why.” 

“ Do you? ” said his brother, with broad significance. 

“ What on earth do you mean ? ” asked Wilfrid. Robert’s 
innuendoes never gave you the choice of ignoring them. 

“ You don’t need to be told,” Bertha’s old lover replied. 
“ She is no flirt, and though the most sensible girl that I 
know in her conduct, has a foolish, romantic, hero- 
worshiping side to her disposition. Carroll is the star 
that has dazzled her vision ever since she went on the stage, 
an illusion. Will, which has lingered somehow, and at all 
events saves her from other illusions of the same sort,” 
he concluded. 

“ I ! ” Wilfrid’s voice rang drearily enough, but he was 
in a gay humor, and the flood of cynicism and mockery 
that any serious thought now seemed to let loose in his 
ill-tutored mind was checked. 


248 


FAMOUS OR IMFAMOUS. 


“ Yes, you,” growled Dr. Blake. “ At least it is my firm 
belief she cared for you from the first, which was why she 
never cared for me — nor for those other fellows.” 

“ Pooh,” said Wilfrid contemptuously. “ It is you who 
are going foolish and romantic in your old age. I can’t 
follow you there.” 

“ Well,” said the doctor, “ I’m a dense fellow, no doubt, 
compared to you. And yet I am persuaded I understand 
her better.” 

“ Bertha. Oh, nonsense ! ” 

Swear, Wilfrid, that you never suspected it, never 
derived a faint pleasure from a faint impression to that 
effect. You cannot. But to entertain it as a definite 
thought would have been unwarranted by anything in the 
behavior of a girl who had more than enough of maidenly 
pride, and who had scrupulously spared him those 
flattering attentions he was used to have bestowed 
upon him, from self-interested motives, by those who 
were as indifferent to him, sentimentally, as Bertha, in 
Rob’s opinion, was the reverse. The idea had crossed his 
imagination, as a butterfly flits across your path. A 
moment your eyes follow it ; the next it is gone ; its 
passage forgotten. Once more to-night it had recurred, 
not at once to slip out of mind. 

The next evening came. Bertha, used to be constantly 
in his company, well schooled to tranquil cool friendly 
intercourse, and utterly unsuspicious of what was in his 
head, baffled his new-born curiosity by the seeming in- 
difference of her manner. Pish 1 Rob had been roman- 
cing, and he was a coxcomb. That piqued him ; satisfy his 
despotic, inquisitive vanity now he must, insensible to 
what his whim might cost the poor girl. 

“ Poor Jim looks more crestfallen than ever to-night,” 
he said to her jokingly, choosing a moment when he could 
inflict a little persiflage on her undisturbed. “You have 
been giving him the cold shoulder again. Do you never 
mean to take pity on the poor chap. See how thin he has 
grown.” 

“ Don’t you think that an improvement ? ” retorted 
Bertha, in his own tone of banter. 

“ Distinctly. At this rate he will be an Adonis when 
he has pined a little longer. Perhaps you will listen to 
him then ? ” 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


249 

Has he engaged you as his advocate ? asked Bertha 
laughing. 

“ I should refuse the brief,” returned Wilfrid. “ I am 
unlucky when I plead with you for another. It is not the 
first time. I have no chance with you in that capacity. 
Why is it, Bertha .? ” 

He did not hesitate, to his shame be it spoken, to throw 
into his voice a half-playful half-tender significance. He 
took her hand and his look searched her fair countenance 
more intently than it had done all the ten years they had 
known each other. Bertha blushed deeply ; that she could 
not help, but that was all. 

She withdrew her hand gently and said, “ Good-night.” 
She was not angry, but pained by his raillery, he saw. 

“ By Jove ! ” he thought, “ did Rob know what he was 
talking about? ” 

He went off, musing oddly ; with a suddenly sharpened 
interest in this pretty girl, this charming actress, whose 
heart and hand might possibly be his for the wooing — • 
though of this, from her manner just now, he felt very far 
from sure — one with whom — this was the gospel, according 
to brother Robert, Wilfrid knew as well as though he had 
preached it in a long sermon — he might have a chance 
of arresting his downfall, starting his course again on a 
creditable footing, detaching himself from the demons 
within and without, to whose ruling he had quietly sur- 
rendered. 

It was unlikely that she loved him still; but at this 
moment he was anything but certain he did not love her. He 
knew the sweetness and purity of her nature, and in his self- 
abasement had not quite lost his intelligent appreciation for 
her superiority to angels of the profaner school, whose 
blandishments filled him, even while he accepted, nay, 
sought them, with an indescribable cruel contempt; the 
small pains he took to conceal his sentiments offending the 
amour propre of even those not over-sensitive ladies. 
Poor Honora, goddess of vulgarity though she was called, 
and rather proud of the sobriquet, had her illusions, like 
all the rest of her sex ; she had been sorely disenchanted 
and disgusted, to the point of quarrelling and breaking 
violently with her last conquest. 

Marry Bertha, if she would have him, Rob wanted him 
to. Why not ? 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


^50 

Chiefly because he felt he had grown incapable of a 
design or serious resolution. He had taken to drifting, 
contentedly, and whether into port or into the whirlpool 
he was becoming too inert to take the helm. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

AS YOU LIKE IT. 

The last two years had been the happiest of Bertha’s life. 
They were the happiest she was ever to know. 

She had risen, and was rising, in her profession. Old 
Siddonsian dreams had given place to sane aspirations 
after excellence and success, both, at last, in a fair way to 
be fulfilled. 

Thanks mainly to Wilfrid's protective influence. There 
was pleasure unspeakable to her in the increasing import- 
ance and closeness of their professional relations — brought 
about by her definite promotion from a subordinate position 
— and of enduring relations he had none but professional 
now. His home was gone. 

With ladies of the theatre generally, he was become as 
unpopular as ever ; his notorious incivility made them long 
for some signal revenge. To Bertha he was never uncivil, 
but never gallant ; so none looked on her jealously, as 
enemy or rival. 

Since that conversation with his brother Wilfrid’s fancy 
inclined to stray a good deal in that direction. It would 
have soothed his amour propre to find himself an object 
of enthusiastic admiration and romantic constancy. Wretch- 
edly conscious of the falling off in his repute, and feeling the 
outward humiliation the more cruelly from long acclimati- 
zation to an atmosphere of inordinate flattery, here was 
something to cheat him back into self-approval, deliver 
him awhile from the impure fascination he found in brood- 
ing over it that he had become a worthless dog, as an 
unalterable fate. 

There came a day when Crowe gave a picnic to the 
company and other friends at Hadley Wood. Carroll had 
accepted the invitation to spare himself the trouble of 
inventing an excuse, but without the remotest intention of 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


251 

joining the merry throng. Then, when the moment arrived, 
he found himself let in for it, carried off bodily, too lazy 
to shake himself free. So he went, and the first thing he 
heard was a whispered bit of gossip — the latest. Miss 
Norton had refused young Malten, a gentleman of family 
and property, a splendid partly whom any girl in her 
senses, let alone an actress, would have jumped at. Was 
she waiting for an offer from the Heir Apparent, they all 
wondered. 

“ She’s pretty enough for him or any one, any way,” was 
Carroll’s languid rejoinder, something in his kingly manner 
eliciting instant gibes, and among them a sneering wager 
that he would not venture to propose for her himself. 
‘‘ Done,” said Carroll jokingly ; and both parties forgot 
about the joke till afterwards. 

Bertha, like all sensitive people, had long since learnt 
that to go gathering enjoyment with both hands is to 
court the certain sting of some rude disenchantment ; 
but to-day, she decided, was to be a perfect day ; just 
this once she would let herself go to her holiday humor. 
Carrol, everybody noted with surprise, was almost agreeable 
this afternoon ; ready, entertaining of speech. He was 
specially attentive to Bertha, but so delicately as not to 
obtrude the fact on the rest. He threw something in his 
manner towards her which gladdened her secretly, deeply ; 
it silently implied an understanding, a freemasonry of 
friendship between him and her, moving in a crowd of 
strangers. 

There was a sumptuous lunch under the greenwood tree, 
which lasted two hours ; quips and cranks flew fast ; yet 
the pleasure-seekers found time a little hard to kill. Wilfrid 
noticed that Bertha was the only person present who did 
not look out of place in a wood. With her pale blue dress, 
large hat, slender grace, delicate mould of feature, and 
pensive expression, she resembled a Gainsborough portrait, 
and suffered nothing by comparaison with the more showy 
sirens round. 

The extreme unreadiness she had showed to respond to 
slight personal advances on his part, unable or unwilling 
to take them as seriously meant, provoked doubts of his 
empire — suspicions of an unknown rival — at once irritating 
him against her and kindling his emulation to triumph over 
her maidenly unconcern. Vainly to-day he tried to surprise 
gome tell-tale glance. 


252 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


Decidedly she was enjoying herself more than Verena, 
who, sensibly bored as the afternoon wore on, and their 
return train was not yet, hailed the news that at the dis- 
tance of some ten minutes’ walk was a “ hotel ” that rejoiced 
in the possession of a skittle-alley. What a joke to go 
over there for a game ! The whole party caught at the sug- 
gestion. 

Carroll, walking by Miss Norton, brought up the rear of 
the procession. As they emerged from the wood, the dusty 
stretch of uphill road before him looked so hot and unin- 
viting that his indolence recoiled from the little walk in the 
sun. 

“ Do you want to play skittles ? ” he asked her sighing. 

“ Not in the least,” Bertha confessed. 

“ Then let us stop in the shade,” he said. “ They’ll soon 
have had enough.” 

• So allowing their companions to get on ahead, they re- 
traced their steps, unnoticed, to the woodland haunt just 
forsaken. A picturesque clearance among the tall oaks and 
elms and scattered thickets of hawthorn, holly, and bramble 
in blossom. It might have been a fancy scene out of As 
You Like Ity this bit of suburban wildwood, clothing the 
broken irregular ground, the glints of afternoon sunshine 
catching the tree-stems whose lengthening shadows fell 
across the path. 

Bertha had resumed her former seat under a gracefully 
spreading forest beech. He stood up, leaning against it, 
and lit a cigarette. 

Looking down, it struck him that he had never quite taken 
in certain things about her. Bertha was not coquettish, 
but she knew that she had very pretty hair, and small 
hands and feet, and that these and other points were not 
set off to-day to the worst advantage. How young she 
looked ! The reflection prompted his sudden, semi-senti- 
mental remark: 

“ Bertha, what a long long while you and I have known 
each other.” 

Aye, their acquaintance dated from the very outset of 
his career, days before Marcia had crossed his path. 

“ Yes,” answered Bertha low, not gladly ; his listless 
tone struck a passing chill on her elation. By diligent 
make-believe of high spirits he had half succeeded in pro- 
voking mirth genuine, but, the effort once dropped, he felt 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


253 


fast relapsing into a nameless gloom, and began to repent 
he had shirked the skittle alley. His eyes sought Bertha 
and stayed there, faintly fascinated. Her changing color, 
the animation of sweet, subdued excitement lent to her 
person a charm not always present there. Still so myste- 
riously reticent and unresponsive. This time he must and 
would make sure of his ground. 

“ Would not one think,” he resumed, “ that it was our 
destiny never to lose sight of each other ? ” 

“ As fellow-artists, fellow-stagers, we are bound to be 
always meeting,” said Bertha speaking lightly, with a heavy 
heart 

“ And is that not to be very near to each other,” he 
said ; “ life-comrades in art — the only life for you and me.” 

“ The only life ? ” 

Something like a pall fell on her dawning joy, but she 
looked at him and it lifted. The words, taken as tender 
raillery, as indeed they were spoken, and interpreted by 
the light of his altered and intent expression, had another 
and a sweet significance. His smile was sad, it would not 
have been his own had it been gay ; but in this unwonted 
concentration of his attention on herself, his whole counte- 
nance seemed to breathe some unspeakable message of 
deep feeling, grown up late, and cherished as a solace by 
his sore heart, for her, the fair woman, the true artist, the 
single-hearted friend. 

Wilfrid had thrown away his cigarette. It was in another 
voice that he now spoke : 

“ Bertha, will you be my wife ? ” 

Precious words to her ears, however spoken ! She 
heard, but half crediting, for a dreamy delight. 

“ I should not deceive you,” he went on. “ But you 
should know, you do know, what I am and what I am not. 
They may put me down as an artist in his prime ; but it is 
not so. Now and then I seem to be treading on thin ice — I 
am not the same — the public will find it out sooner or 
later.” 

She could have smiled, in sweet incredulity at his self- 
depreciation. For that instant she was absorbed in the 
simple joy of the surprise that had fallen straight from 
heaven upon her. It was Wilfrid speaking ; he had asked 
her to be his wife. The unpremeditated, devil-may-care, 
wayward, motive spirit of his love-making was disguised 


254 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


by his real enipresseme7it., at this moment to prevail, and her 
happiness that she should be chosen made her unsus- 
picious. 

Looking down, he saw a delicious picture. 

With an involuntary movement of her hand she had 
pushed back her hat. It fell off, showing the dainty head, 
with the rings of wavy fair hair curling on the brow, the 
expressive bright eyes and soft lips, the little chin and 
delicately-rounded neck. Dolt that he was to have re- 
mained insensible to this hour. As a fact she had never 
looked so pretty in her life as now. 

“ Not a word, Bertha ? ” he said, in a tone become more 
eager, and confident lover-like. Perversely she felt her- 
self recoil from his appeal. He tried to take her hand ; 
she would not. Clasping them together she rose hastily 
and turned from him with a confused, pained, impulsive 
exclamation. 

“ No, no. I will not. And you do not care.” 

But he had possessed himself of both hands, and for all 
reply he folded her in his arms. No reluctant, shy Dryad 
any more to a pursuer so determined as this. Her resis- 
tance, avoidance, died at his touch ; his compelling eyes 
were on her flushed face, and challenged hers to tell the 
truth, though her lips might lie to him. 

“ Am I nothing to you, Bertha ? ” he said, with a sad- 
ness that touched her ; then as her mute hesitation lasted, 
he repeated, with a vehement protest that bore down all 
mistrust, “ Nothing ? not though I love you so well ? ” 

“ Everything,” she murmured back inaudibly, tremu- 
lously, as he kissed her cheek. 

When the next day their engagement was announced, 
their comrades declared that they had seen it coming for 
some time, and every one was pleased on the whole. 
Bertha was so inoffensive, so unassuming, Carroll so in- 
tractable, such a hopeless subject, that even Verena bore 
her no malice now. Dr. Blake was in the seventh heaven. 
He blessed Bertha in his heart, and told her she would be 
the salvation of his brother. His sanguine temper re- 
vived ; the domestic Gordian knot was untied. In forego- 
ing the keepership of his self-imposed charge he would put 
it into better hands. Scarcely less pleased was his wife. 
She patronized Bertha, and became of a sudden quite civil 
and tolerant to Wilfrid, calculating to a nicety the days 
Still to elapse before he would be out of the hous^. 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


Although Wilfrid, when he started for the picnic, had 
no more idea of getting engaged to be married than of em- 
barking for the Cape of Good Hope, he felt no repenting 
afterwards. It would make little difference, it seemed to 
him ; he and Bertha were so constantly together as it was ; 
their professional interests, so paramount with stagers, 
were identical. Bertha, as competent to be the leading 
actress of his company, yet one whose artistic attraction 
would never rival his, suited him better there than had 
she been a more brilliant star. Their marriage would be 
drawing more closely the links of an already existing part- 
nership. And finding in their novel relation a temporary 
escape from his habitual depression, he was ready to take 
some pains to throw himself heartily into his part of the 
ardent lover. For she had evidently doubted him ; which 
doubt confirmed, she was a girl capable even now of draw- 
ing back. 

What should she do then but yield to an illusion with- 
out a touch of which it is questionable whether any mar- 
riage would ever come off at all ? He made all as plain 
and certain as it was sweet. All these long years they two 
had been strangers ; their altered relations — his attach- 
ment had sprung spontaneously out of that nearer approach 
to each other recent events had brought about. Her 
prettiness brightened in those days like a flower in sun- 
shine. Wilfrid saw it, heard every one remarking on it, 
and it flattered him, whose vanity was suffering from recent 
sore mortifications of more kinds than one. 

No rankling thorn of memory or remorse to mar Bertha’s 
felicity. She had deserved well of fate ; and the coming 
of her unhoped for desire was like an award of poetical 
justice, proving that it exists and can be depended on in 
the long run. She had shown herself a devoted daughter 
and sister, a loyal friend, a conscientious artist, and to-day 
the crown of the reward she had never asked for was put 
into her hands. 

Whether or not Carroll properly appreciated his luck, 
Bertha’s rejected suitors did, and scowled accordingly. 
Miss Courtney’s younger brother, and the brewer’s son 
and heir — well, she had got her choice — might she like it, 
that’s all, was their rather vicious comment. 

A fresh charm entered into her stage impersonations. 
She and Carroll appeared together as play hero and hero- 


256 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


ine ; and the applause doubled, half of it for their good 
acting, and the other half because they were betrothed. 
Their approaching marriage was not to disturb their pre- 
vious plans. After fulfilling a week’s engagement at Lind- 
ham, a quiet little town near the Sussex coast, where 
Bertha would stay with private friends, they were to be 
quietly married there on the day of their last representa- 
tion, and resume their professional duties at Southampton 
after a four days’ honeymoon in the Isle of Wight. 

Bertha firmly believed herself the most practical and 
unromantic of promised wives during this enchanted spell. 
She would have been super-feminine to detect that what 
appeared to her like a revelation of her lover’s profound 
sentiments was sometimes no more than the reflection of 
her own. Wilfrid cared so little for her as to change his 
mind. Since the day of their plighted troth a new light 
was thrown on his previous behavior; and his manner, 
which could throw a world of meaning into some passing 
trivial emotion of personal admiration, and let a gleam of 
triumph at vanity gratified flash with all the fire of exult- 
ant, conquering love, deprived her of the defence of doubt. 

Of course they would have their troubles, like other 
couples — his health, Robert had warned her, would remain 
a constant care, and professional worries never come to an 
end ; but these were but spots on a sun so divine that, whilst 
aware of their existence, she found their darkening action 
imperceptible. Marcia, poor Marcia, once above the 
reach of envy, and for whom now no pity seemed too pro- 
found. For Wilfrid, time had deadened the effect of that 
blow ; the pain of treachery forcing you to loathe and con- 
demn what once claimed and compelled your best love. 
Bertha’s part was to atone to him for that loss ; to heal 
the wound and redeem the past. She loved him so well 
that she felt as if — sweetly assured now and reassured of 
his strong and serious affection — the mission would be 
easy. 

Dr. Blake had extorted from his wife — under protest — a 
brief leave of absence, the last, he swore, he would take 
on Wilfrid s account ; he went down one day to join him 
at Lindham, and see him through the ceremony on the 
morrow. 

He found him in fairly bad condition, nervous and mo- 
rose, molested by insomnia and neuralgia. Robert taxed 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


257 


him with having had recourse to forbidden narcotics ; and 
Wilfrid’s angry denial did not shake his belief in the 
least. 

The match-maker now suggested postponing the cere- 
mony for the day or two, but Wilfrid would not hear of 
that. To Bertha and his companions he betrayed little or 
nothing of his disorder, only with his brother he took no 
pains to act a part. 

Dr. Blake’s spirits sank ; but he ascribed everything to 
the unavoidable worry and to-do of an approaching wed- 
ding, and the protracted sultry weather combined. Things 
would be better when the fuss was over. He must get him 
through it somehow. And when Wilfrid, after playing 
David Garrick in the intervals of an obstinate attack of 
neuralgia, returned to the hotel, the exertion over, only to 
succumb to the torment again, and with the wretched cer- 
tainty of a sleepless night before him, Dr. Blake was 
obliged to sanction his determined but as it proved indif- 
ferently successful attempt to a ert it b a tremendous 
dose of chloral. 

“ Just lovely you look, Bertha,” said a gushing cousin 
and bridesmaid to her next morning, as she stood arrayed, 
about to start for the church. And, without vanity, the 
delicately graceful bride, beholding herself, in the glass, 
must feel the compliment genuine. 

Dr. Blake had passed an uncomfortable night ; but was 
consoled to find that Wilfrid was brisker to-day and would 
be up to the scratch. He was too pale, but that was 
all. 

The arrangements had been made so quietly that until 
the last only those immediately concerned knew that the 
wedding was coming off. It made quite a sensation in the 
little old-fashioned town, seldom honored by visitors of 
art-repute. Everybody not actually “in it,” so to speak, 
must at least come out to see. School children strewed 
flowers ; bells rang with aggressive merriment ; the church 
was crowded ; the parson, all benignity and approval, read 
the service most impressively. Bertha won all hearts ; 
the ceremony passed off without a hitch ; and the August 
sun shone on the bridal party as they drove back to the 
hotel, where a grand spread followed. A gathering of 
friends, professional and private, as quiet as circumstances 
permitted, fairly noisy that is. 

17 


258 


FAMOUS OF INFAMOUS. 


Every seat in the Assembly Hall was taken for that 
evening, to see the newly-married couple appear together 
in Ingomai\ Dr. Blake felt easier ; Wilfrid had risen to 
the occasion, talked fluently, with extreme, if fitful, anima- 
tion; appearing naturally to his comrades somewhat exhil- 
arated, as were they, by the champagne. Only his 
brother noticed that he scarcely touched it ; and approved 
his abstinence, the motive being, however, that it tasted to 
him like some horrible compound, impossible to swallow. 
Speeches protracted the feast ; but everything has an end, 
even wedding-feasts. Now the bride left the room to 
change her dress, and the guests who had come from 
London expressly for the ceremony began to take leave, 
and the members of the Carroll company to look at their 
watches. It would shortly be time to start for the Hall. 

The courtyard was full of hired vehicles, coming and 
going. Dr. Blake, who had gone out to see some friends 
on their way to the station, passed, without taking note of 
it, a traveling carriage that at that moment drove up to the 
inn. One of the horses had fallen dead lame ; the carriage 
was closed ; he did not even see wliether it was occupied. 

Wilfrid, the last guest gone out of the room, flung him- 
self into a chair, looking less like the picture of a joyful 
bridegroom than anything else in the world ; and thinking, 
truth to tell, not of his wedding at all, but with dire dis- 
may that two hours hence he would have to be on the 
stage ; and that he was totally unfit, would never get 
through — make himself the laughing-stock of the place. 

The tension of forced exertion relaxed, the neuralgic 
demon threatened to return. Unhinged as he felt, he was 
like one taken giddy crossing a river on a plank, who can- 
not answer for his next stej). The least thing would suf- 
fice to throw him out fatally, in his present state of mind 
and body, when a bang of a door struck his nerves like a 
sword thrust ; the rasi)ing accents of a comrade in the 
courtyard roused in him a sudden ludicrous but overwhelm- 
ing fury. During the table talk just now, wishing to 
mention tlie name of the town he was in, he found he had 
utterly forgotten it. How to ])ull himself together for the 
play was the question, how to cheat the enemy so as to 
fulfil his part in public to the bitter end ? There was one 
way — he had the means in his pocket. Rising, with a 
hasty glance round to make sure he was alone, and 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


259 


brother Robert not spying about, he took it. His mood 
changed swiftly, his spirits brightened, his self-distrust dis- 
appeared. Of a certain he should be able to act to-night, 
as usual. Soothing ideas, vague pleasant visions, the 
delicious sense of ease and pleasure supervening on dis- 
comfort, filled him, as he leant back in his chair and closed 
his dazed eyes. 

There followed the strangest ten minutes of his life. 
Hallucination of the senses, said a remnant of cold reason 
and of memory, for his brain had played him an ugly trick 
or two of the same sort of late. 

He was listening in a dream to a voice — a dialogue, 
whether in the room or at a distance, did not appear. 

“ How long must I wait ? ” said a voice, a voice he had 
no more thought to hear again than his dead father’s ! 
Yet, as with the voice of the dead in a dream, it seemed the 
most natural thing in the world to hear. 

“ About half an hour. Here is a private room where your 
ladyship will be undisturbed. Will your ladyship take 
anything ? ” 

“ No. Let me know the instant the horses are put to.” 

The door that now shut was that of a private sitting- 
room, adjoining and communicating by another door with 
the apartment where the wedding-luncheon had been 
held. 

The opium-eater had a sense of delusion as unquestioned 
as when you see landscapes distinctly in the glowing coals. 
But he had also the feeling that Marcia was in that next 
room — an inexplicable consciousness like that of a ghostly 
presence that besets you waking suddenly in the night. 
If he opened the door he would dispel the hallucination — 
or no, it might go further — he remembered such an occa- 
sion — trick of opium or brandy — he had jested with Rob 
about it, and the man had looked very glum and warned 
him of it. Was she behind the door as a phantom, or was 
the waking dream over already ? Morbid curiosity and 
bewilderment held him fast. He could not move. Then 
a sound, as of the window being thrown open in the next 
room, gave him an unpleasant start. He rose, with a 
guilty look, and noiselessly turned the door handle. The 
ghost was there — a figure with its back turned to him — 
seated between the window-curtains. 


26 o 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


He had so completely lost the sense of reality that he 
beheld for the first moment with no emotion, scarcely witli 
surprise; the second — for his judgment had not entirely 
deserted him — he was thrilled from head to foot by a 
growing horror at this dire revelation of a weakened and 
wandering brain. 

For the dream continued, holding him with the sinister 
fascination of vertigo or suicide, numbing his will to shake 
it off. 

She sat with her face buried in her hands. White hands, 
shapely arms, amber head — there, and not there. His 
head swam — he had a savage longing to rush forward and 
strike the life out of that figure which could obscure his 
imagination to the point of making him a visionary, a half- 
lunatic. But his limbs would not respond to his call. 
And his impulse mocked itself. That was a shadow, a 
phantom he wanted to slay. 

He was wishing fearfully that she would take her hands 
from her face, half anticipating that it would show him 
something hideous or deformed — the face of a Medusa, or 
of a decaying corpse. The figure was a true picture, lithe 
and supple, all dignity and expressive grace, even in 
repose. But the features behind those hands ? ” 

The heat was stifling, and she seemed to suffer. Her 
light head-covering weighted her brow like lead. With a 
sudden restless movement she removed her bonnet, and 
the mass of hair, disarranged by traveling, fell down over 
her shoulders. Hastily, carelessly, she twisted it back 
with one hand, pushing it off her forehead, and leant back 
with closed eyes, unconscious that she was being watched. 

She was weary — oppressed by the heat and dust of the 
journey. She used not to be so pale, and something had 
befallen her ey^s — the life had left them. What Wilfrid 
was looking at was less like a woman than an impersona- 
tion of grief. 

The sharp click of the door shutting made Marcia look 
round. Nothing. It was the wind. 

Dr. Blake came to his brother’s room just as he was 
about to start for the Hall, to all appearances composed 
and capable. In his mental disorder he had attributed 
the persistence of the hallucination just now to the insuffi- 
ciency of the restorative measures previously taken, and 
proceeded to remedy that. He had stayed off the evil 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


261 

hour for a bit longer at all events. That little elixir he 
knew of was a blessed discovery. Those orthodox prac- 
titioners of Rob’s stamp would hang certain others as 
quacks. They want to kill you in their own way. 

All the country side had flocked to see the bridal pair 
perform. 

There was a romantic, almost a sensational real interest 
underlying that of the drama. Bertha had often played 
better, but to-night she had only to smile and speak 
prettily ; the audience were ravished as though she had 
been a Rachel. 

Carroll got through without apparent difficulty. There 
were thunders of applause for both at the close. When 
they entered the carriage that was to drive them back to 
the hotel, a crowd of urchins and underlings eyed their 
departure from the stage-door, and raised a shrill bridal 
cheer as they started off. Wilfrid stared in blank surprise, 
as though puzzled to account for the jubilation. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

GHOSTS. 

That was the first moment they had been alone together. 
•The way was dark, and Bertha far too wrought up to be 
coldly observant ; but her companion’s listless attitude 
and absent manner, and oblivious indifference to her 
presence, as though she had been any other, at such a 
moment, struck a little chill to her heart. But she ascribed 
it to the emotional exertion just undergone ; he would be 
himself again presently. ♦ 

“ How well, how well it went ! ” she said impulsively, 
convinced that he had never acquitted himself in such 
masterly fashion. 

“Did you think so?’’ he asked, looking at ' her 
suspiciously, persuaded that he must have said or done 
something that betrayed his mental blunders. “ Did you 
not see how I was put out? Once, twice I lost the cue. 
I thought it must have been observed.” 

“ Oh, no, there was not a flaw anywhere,” she assured 
him gaily. 


262 


FAMOUS OR TUFA AW US, 


He shook his head, muttering, “ It was the narrowest 
shave I ever had ; and I saw some of them notice it — 
laughing together, the villains ! But I’ll confound them 
yet. You shall see to-morrow, in that very scene.” 

“ To-morrow ? ” echoed Bertha blankly. What was he 
talking about. 

“ Aye. I’ve thought of some new effects. I should like 
to play Hamlet to these people. Will you play Ophelia ? ” 

“ Of course I will,” she answered low. 

“Why of course? ” he said nonchalantly 

A passing gleam from a street lamp showed her his face. 
Such pallor she had hardly seen on the face of the living ; 
the expression of his eyes, vacant and distant, would alone 
have indicated, apart frum the incoherent phrases dropped, 
that his mind, his memory were affected ; that he had no 
recollection of their plans, not even at that moment of 
marriage. His ideas, lucid in themselves, enchained them- 
selves wrongly. She was dumb with the sudden scare, 
possessed with the horror that her husband had gone mad. 
Was that what Robert meant when he talked of his liability 
to nervous attacks. 

Wilfrid’s brother was standing on the steps of the hotel, 
as if on the look out for their return. Bertha hailed it as 
a fortunate chance that he had not gone back to town, 
though he had talked of it. 

Wilfrid left the carriage without taking notice of him or 
of her, and mounted the staircase. Bertha stopped behincf 
to whisper something to Dr. Blake, who was observing his 
strange behavior uneasily, but not with the surprise she had 
expected. 

“ What is the matter ? ” she asked, in extreme constern- 
ation. Dr. Blake was looking so very grave. 

‘ I am not sure,” he said. “ Knocked up by the heat, 
I expect. But this won’t do — we shall have him on the 
shelf again if we don’t mind. You wait, Bertha. Leave 
him to me.” 

“ He is my husband,” said Bertha, with animation. “ If 
he is ill, who should be there, if not I ? ” 

“ Well,” said Dr. Blake. “ Then come in to us quietly 
in a few minutes.” 

Wilfrid had walked straight into his sleeping-room. He 
had gone up the Bernina Alp with less exertion than it had 
now cost him to mount the hotel staircase. He staggered 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


263 


and fell into a chair, too listless to shut the door or strike 
a match. The next moment he saw Robert’s shadow on 
the threshold. 

“ What do you want ? ” he asked, in querulous impa- 
tience. 

“ I want a light,” said Robert, advancing, showing his 
cigar-case in his hand. He could find no matches on the 
dressing-table, and went towards a curtained opening into 
a sitting-room annexed. 

“ She is there, you know,” said Wilfrid abruptly, ab- 
stractedly. 

“She? Who?” 

“ Marcia.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked his brother with clumsily 
feigned surprise. 

“ I saw her — heard her go in. She must be there still. 
I have not stirred. She must pass through here to get out 
of that room. She will not do that.” 

“ Curse it ! ” muttered Robert inwardly. “ What an 
infernal coincidence ! As though there were not mischief 
enough at work already.” 

“ Look here, Wilfrid,” he said. “ This is folly. You 
have been dosing yourself with the pernicious stuff I 
solemnly warned you against, and are paying for it more 
heavily than you will like. You can’t tell dreams from 
waking ; you admit it. That is what your self-indulgence 
has brought you to. There is nobody in here.” He drew 
back the partition curtains as he spoke, walked in, and lit 
all the candles. “ Better come in and convince yourself 
that the room is vacant.” 

“ Yes, for you,” said Wilfrid, with increasing derange- 
ment of manner ; “ how do you know she will not be there 
for me ? There, in that chair. Pretend you cannot see 
her, you blind fool ! that streak of light is her hair, stream- 
ing. She is in black, like the room ; I always hated black. 
White was her color. Why has she changed it ? ” Then as 
the candles burned up and their sickly glare brightened, 
his eyes swept the empty space with an indescribable 
blank expression. “ Not gone,” he muttered. “She has 
hidden herself. I have been watching here ever since. She 
would not pass this way. She must fling herself from the 
window then. Look out and see.” 


264 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


“ Opium or brandy," thought the prosaic Doctor Blake, 
reviewing this complete cerebral derangement. “ Both, 
perhaps." 

Wilfrid of a sadden constrained himself to rise and walk 
into the sitting-room. The final collapse of his delusion 
jarred afresh on his irritable nerves. He flung himself on 
the sofa with incoherent exclamations of violent rage 
against his brother for badgering him. Hearing Bertha’s 
light footstep outside, Dr. Blake went out into the passage 
to speak to her. 

“Is he very ill?" she asked, in unspeakable uneasi- 
ness. 

“ He is killing himself with morphia," said Robert im- 
patiently, “ as plenty have done before him. I am very 
anxious, Bertha. I thought he had given it up. Then, by 
a strange accident — I had better tell you — he saw Marcia 
pass this afternoon, I suspect." 

“ Marcia !" echoed Bertha, stupefied. 

“ She was driving to a place Austin Day has taken near 
here for the summer. The carriage broke down, and had 
to wait here a few minutes. I was told of it after you left 
for the theatre. Whether he really saw her or only heard 
of it I am not sure, and, I don’t think he could tell me." 

Bertha was silent. Marcia. Well, she knew, Wilfrid 
knew, that Marcia lived. But the passage of that figure 
was like a thing of ill-omen, mysteriously spurring in to. a 
more vivid activity the girl’s lurking pain and dawning 
terrible misgiving that he who this morning had plighted 
her his troth had, after all, no real feeling for her. The im- 
pression of his manner in the carriage just now, self-forget- 
ful and horribly natural, had given her a foreboding of her 
real position. 

“ May I go in ? she asked, so meekly and quietly that 
Dr. Blake was deceived. She was taking it easily, like the 
rational girl that she was. 

“ Yes, you had better,’’ he said. “ And stay with him 
till I come back." If it was brandy his brother was suf- 
fering from, he inclined just then to try a homeopatic 
remedy. 

Bertha came in. The room was dark and vacant, but 
her light dress was visible to Wilfrid from the lighted inner 
sitting-room. He sat up on the sofa, and Bertha saw him 
distinctly. His change of countenance as she approached 


FAAJOC/S OR INFAMOUS, 


265 


gladdened her suddenly, though he had never looked at 
her thus — a flash of realized fierce expectation, eager, wild 
and defiant, scared with emotion and piercing her with his 
unnaturally bright eyes. As she came up confidently, he 
held out his hands. 

“ Marcia ! ” he cried, in a voice that stunned her like a 
blow from a heavy stone. It was not fond — a cry of pas- 
sion ; he had seized her hands with a terrifying violence 
scarcely felt in the sudden despair that had struck her. 
He did not love her. Let him kill her ; she does not care. 

It was not her body but her soul that he was to wound 
mortally. For as he gazed into her face and slowly 
recognized her, it brought a moment of perfect lucidity, of 
perfect memory ; all the animation, the eloquence died out 
of his countenance, to give place to a hard, derisive indiffer- 
ence, bordering on aversion. He was himself; he gave 
a laugh — a laugh she was always to hear; he let go her 
hands with a slight, but, to her terribly expressive gesture, 
as though to put her from him. Something died in her 
too. “ You little idiot," Dr. Blake would have said. “The 
man is ill ; doesn’t know what he is about — no more than 
if he were drunk or talking in his sleep. Even so ; and 
unwittingly lets you surprise things in his mind which he 
has concealed." 

She could not speak ; the shock seemed to have effec- 
tually brought him back to his senses. “ My head is 
queer to-night," he said. “ I wonder if I can have got a 
sunstroke ? " 

With the dreary return of lucidity came the sense of 
nervous prostration and tormenting irritability, making 
mere animal existence insupportable. U'he rattling of a 
cart in the courtyard lacerated his nerves like broken glass ; 
the yelping of a dog so exasperated him that only by sheer 
muscular exertion could he stop himself from some savage 
grotesque burst of violence ; the neuralgic pain in his head 
was beginning again, sleep seemed too far off for him ever 
to overtake it. People have hanged themselves to get out 
ofless, was the reflection he made. 

“ I am better now," he said presently, in a tone of reas- 
suring self-command. “ Get me a glass of water from 
downstairs, where it is fresh, in the ice." 

Bertha flew. On the instant he steadied himself to 
stand ; walked to a cupboard and unlocked it, and took 


266 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


out a phial, fortunately only half full, which he drained. 
He would do the job this time, and make sure. 

Bertha met the doctor on the stairs. He frowned, and 
she hurriedly related what had passed. 

“ You shouldn’t have left him,” said Dr. Blake, brushing 
hastily past her into his brother’s rooms, to find him 
dropping off into a heavy stupor ; this time he had 
been careless to conceal his manner of proceeding. 
Robert took up the empty bottle, roughly calculating 
the nature and amount of its contents, and shrugged 
his shoulders expressively. He took Bertha out into 
the passage, shutting the door, and told her briefly how 
matters stood. 

“You can do no good by staying just now,” he said 
peremptorily. “You had better go and lie down. I will 
look after him. The best thing you can do is to get some 
rest. There is nothing whatever here that need frighten 
you ; but you will want all your strength and patience. 
Things are bound to be worse and not better to-morrow ; 
and I may have to leave him, when it will all fall upon 
you.” 

Bertha acquiesced in silence. Dr. Blake went back, and 
she turned towards the door of her room ; but instead of 
entering, went hurriedly, noiselessly along the passage, and 
descended the staircase into the hall, where a light was 
kept burning all night. Here a dead stillness had fallen ; 
everybody in the hotel had gone to bed. It was a cool 
and lofty place, with a marble fountain in the centre, the 
basin full of water-plants and fringed with ferns and 
palms. Bertha, fevered with mental oppression, breathed 
more freely in the freshness and space of the lonely hall, 
and seated herself for a while by the fountain. 

Such a change of expression had come into her counte- 
nance as changed its whole character. Sensitive, shrinking 
and reticent, at that moment she cared not who saw, who 
knew — her gentle nature was beside itself, her mind 
desolated by a bitter flood. The bitterness was not against 
Wilfrid. His past selfishness, at length divined, did not 
revolt her ; the weakness of character, now more fully 
understood, her tenderness forgave. But for this hour she 
was alive only to her own misery, so intense was it j and of 
that misery he was the deliberate cause. For he had 
deceived her deliberately, set himself to make her believe 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


267 


he loved her sincerely ; and say or do what he would 
henceforth, that spell was broken. Scales had fallen from 
her eyes, and they and her perceptions become too keen 
and too true. 

Marcia who had betrayed him, deserted him, stolen his 
children, wronged him as deeply as one human being can 
wrong another, he could sooner love again than ever he 
would her, Bertha, who would cheerfully have given her life 
for his ; whom the shadow of falseness or cruelty could not 
come nigh. What is Love ? A god to glorify ? Nay, it is 
devil-worship. It knows nothing of honor, of purity, of 
truth and uprightness. They cannot kindle it or make it 
burn brighter, nor can their opposites quench the flame. 

Whilst Marcia was Wilfrid’s trusted, honored, loved, 
loving wife, Bertha’s loyal friendship was proof against the 
touch of jealousy of one as far above her in deserts, she 
then believed, as in fortune. For the first lime in her life 
she was jealous, fiercely jealous, now; that, after what 
Marcia had proved herself, her shadow could not pass 
without leaving a bright in its track, bringing chaos into 
Wilfrid’s imagination. Ah, no, here she was deceiving 
herself once more ; and she quickly dismissed the wild 
thought. Marcia’s apparition had changed nothing ; and 
that was the worst of it. It was only the revelation of which 
it had been the herald which had destroyed Bertha’s falla- 
cious bliss like a plant scorched to its roots by the sun. 

Time wore on, and she still sat there by the fountain in 
the flickering gaslight and the midnight lull, of which the 
mesmeric sound of the jet of falling water seemed a part 
— an hour, or two, or three ; what matter, with Wilfrid’s 
face at that moment of waking still before her and his laugh 
in her ears. 

They told, past future perjury to contradict, how he had 
lightly taken her for his wife — as it were a stage-bride, for- 
gotten when the mummery is over. She should have been 
indifferent too and not cared. They would have been 
equal then. 

The best people are but human, and Bertha had been 
stung to the quick. Though in perfect possession of her 
reason she was nearly as overwrought, nervously, as Wil- 
frid. Her character was restrained, but her heart was 
sensitive ; and felt it the cruellest mockery to have been 
decoyed by a pretence of earnest regard into placing her- 


268 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


self and the secret of her heart at his mercy, to be undeceived 
the instant the step was irrevocable. But as well now as 
later. It seemed to her now as if she had thrust herself 
upon him, so ill-matched were their sentiments. What 
Robert was pleased to represent as an abnormal condition 
of mind with him was, she surmised, the very reverse. He 
did not want her — was perhaps repenting already that he 
had bound himself ; would regard her as a burden, with 
indifference, with dislike. She whom his protests had 
tempted to dream of conferring happiness upon him ! 

She could not release him from the irksome bond. Yes^ 
but she could. Would God condemn her if she threw 
away a life that could profit neither him nor her, fatally 
yoked together by his reckless levity, her hapless credulity, 
to their mutual misery? He would not, could not regret 
her, that she knew ; whilst her mere existence must fret 
him as tacitly claiming from him a sentiment he had not to 
bestow. 

Three — four o’clock — and the day broke ; the sun was 
up, and she could already hear the servants stirring above. 
She bent forwards and bathed her temples in the cool 
fountain. The world was beginning again ; in another 
few minutes she might be discovered watching here, a 
gazing-stock to the curious. She must make haste if she 
was to reach her room unobserved. But her present wild 
impulse was to fly from here, from what she could not face 
again. She had, to-night, paid fully for her blindness — 
out of his reach, his sight. She had seen in his eyes what 
she would never forget ; that the real Wilfrid Carroll 
cared nothing for her in his heart, and ere long would hate 
her because she was bound to him. How could she bear 
to be with him, remembering that ? Sooner than thrust 
herself upon him she would die. 

At the sound of a servant’s step descending the stairs 
she started up, and in a moment was at the front door. 
She unbolted and slipped out. Nothing was stirring in 
the courtyard ; to go back now would be to risk en- 
countering porters and chambermaids ; she hurried along 
a path leading past the outbuildings of the inn into the 
open country, which she reached in a very few minutes. 
Here she found herself on the skirts of a wooded stretch, 
bordering a hill which she began to climb aimlessly. It 
looked barren and desolate ; there was shade higher up, 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


269 


but she would have taken almost any path that lay 
straight before her. Destination she had none, except to 
get farther and farther away from that hotel. She mounted 
the slope rapidly and walked on at random, till becoming 
suddenly breathless and exhausted, she let herself fall on 
the grass under the shadow of the stunted oaks and 
beeches. There was a wide view, stretching across wild 
downs to the sea, and her eyes took in some of its details 
with mechanical precision, whilst her thouglits pursued 
their wild career, and the fever in her brain was unabated ; 
it was casting about for some way to die here. 

Below, on a gentle spur of the slope, lay a house and 
garden, with bright flowers, strange to see in this scorch- 
ing summer, d’he inmates were stirring ; she could hear 
children’s voices through the upper windows ; activity be- 
ginning early, mindful of the coming deadly heat of noon. 
The front door was unbarred ; some one came out and 
disappeared the next moment in the shrubberies 

Bertha was thinking of that fateful ceremony yesterday, 
and the senseless, hollow rejoicings that had accompanied 
it. The dream of her life verified, a boon whose granting 
had tarnished her future. For she might have remained 
Wilfrid’s mere fellow artist and been tranquilly happy as 
hitherto, she might even have married another and lived 
content. But to have married him under the false convic- 
tion that she could contribute to his happiness by giving 
way, whereas the whole thing had been on his side, the 
brief, tyrannical whim of a temper grown reckless, unham- 
pered in its action by a thought for her or the future — was 
a refinement of fate’s cruelty she had done nothing to 
deserve. He was at liberty to have slighted her and her 
preference altogether ; but in justice destiny should have 
spared her this. 

The lady of the villa yonder reappeared for an instant 
on the fringe of the wood. Even from this distance you 
can see how well and gracefully she walks ; her head 
droops forward a little, under a covering of black lace. 

Wilfrid and his brother thought Bertiia a dispassionate- 
natured girl ; it suited their convenience that it should be 
so ; they did not know — they would not see — that it was 
not. She had feelings, passionate affections, like Marcia, 
like Wilfrid ; and it seemed to her that because they 
Were honest, self-sacrificing in their ma.iifestation, steady 


270 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


and pure, they were misprized, played with and be- 
trayed without compunction. How much truth is there 
in the lip-homage men render to “ the good, the true, 
the pure, the just”? Is there any? How had she lived 
to be so old and not felt the cant of it. 

The lady from the house below has disappeared into 
the wood. She will not come this way; the hill is steep 
— a lonely, rough, wild walk, without attractions. 

Bertha could have borne much, almost anything, from 
Wilfrid except this. But just at this moment, the moment 
of her life, to have the certainty branded into her that it 
was all one to him if she came or went ; her love literally 
no more to him thai^that of the first light girl who threw 
him a smile ; that her loss would leave no pain, no void ; 
that their marriage was a joke, and he cared not if she 
knew it. It broke her heart, that was all. 

The figure had emerged from the wood, and was slowly 
wending up the hillside in the direction of the clump of 
bushes beneath which Bertha lay unnoticeable in the grass. 
Not till it was close upon her did she see it. Sudden 
recognition came like a stab ; she was on her feet, stirred 
to the depths, her eyes alive with indignation, a wounded 
desperate soul. One she had dearly loved and generously 
admired, till the mask fell, stood before her, and there she 
saw the real, the living cause of all her woe. 

Marcia had sought the heath as a solitude. Beyond 
extreme surprise her face showed no emotion at the 
present encounter. 

“ Bertha, you here ! ” she let fall, amazed afresh at the 
girl’s changed aspect. More changed, for that one mo- 
ment, even than her own. 

“ Is the whole earth yours that we may not have space 
to tread it ? ” said Bertha, the taunt wrung from her like a 
cry, by her own pain. “ Would you grudge us standing- 
room there as in the hearts of men ? ” 

For once she felt inaccessible to the sentiment of com- 
passion ; there was that in Marcia’s countenance that 
might have evoked it. 

“ They say that Love is the light of a woman’s life, that 
it gives wings to men’s souls,” resumed Bertha presently. 
“ It is a lie, and they very well know it. Love is a word 
to cheat us. If we knew what it means, what it contains 
— what perfidy, cruelty, baseness — we should shun it likq 
the pest, the sin that it is.” 


FA MO c/s OF INFAMOUS, 


271 


Marcia, regarding her steadily, taken aback by such an 
outburst from one so undemonstrative, was puzzling to 
account for it and its personal character. 

“ How have I injured you, Bertha? ” she asked, that 
you are so bitter against me? I never did you harm, to 
my knowledge.” 

“ Do you think,” replied Bertha, “ that the evil you do 
ends when your hand, having poisoned the spring, is with- 
drawn ? The taint goes on infecting, destroying ; perfidy 
makes perfidy, cruelty cruelty, and the blight you fling on 
one life ruins all who come into its shadow. Listen.” 

They faced each other on the desert heath. 

“ Yesterday morning,” said Bertha impassively, “ I was 
married.” 

“ I know it,” said Marcia likewise. 

“ To Wilfrid Carroll Blake.” 

Marcia knew all and listened in silence. 

“ He forced me to believe that he loved me a little, that 
he cared something for me in his heart. That was false, 
Marcia. Perhaps I should not have found it out so soon, 
but you passed, like a death -bearing wind, you who taught 
him that nothing was sacred, to be false and make light of 
perjury, of vows like those he swore yesterday j and he 
forgot his part, and dropped the mask. It can never im- 
pose on me again. I doubt if he will try to resume it.” 
She paused, then added, “ He saw you yesterday at the 
inn.” 

“ Impossible,” said Marcia. I saw nobody.” 

“ He saw you,” said Bertha. 

“ If he did, the sight could only revive the sense of wrong 
past forgiveness or palliation.” 

“ It may be that he hates you,” said Bertha. “ And yet 
I would rather be hated thus than wooed as he has wooed 
me. It is to you his mind wanders when it is set free j 
and when he wakes to the present he tries to forget him- 
self, to forget me. If I should die to-day he would not 
care.” 

Marcia stood by, calmly silent. A Niobe, watching 
some nymph in sorrow. 

“ I did not see him, Bertha,” she said at length. “ I 
only heard yesterday, after my arrival here, of his presence 
in the town, and of your marriage. I am sorry if ” 

She hesitated, checked by the mockery of speech. 


272 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


“ I am glad,” said Bertha. It is better to know the 
truth, though for me it would have been best to have died 
first. The world may think of me what it pleases. I will 
not return to him except at his bidding. Every one will 
think I am mad ; but he will thank me in his heart for the 
release — the best service I can do him now. I will shelter 
myself in some sisterhood. I am sick of the world. All 
that is not wickedness is sorrow.” 

“ For shame ! ” exclaimed Marcia. Then, speaking in a 
tone whose audacious irony startled her listener and broke 
the current of her excitement and despair, “ Your love is 
a rare article, Bertha. Too good for this life, I think.” 

Bertha raised her eyes, with a scathing retort on her 
lips, unuttered, however. Marcia’s aspect, now first clearly 
beheld, thrilled her strangely. Bertha was well awake, no 
narcotic fumes clouded her brain ; yet she could almost 
have doubted whether this impassible, grey-faced woman 
were Marcia in flesh and blood or a wandering shape of 
sorrow, with a message from the other side of the dark 
river. 

“You poor child,” said Marcia, really sorry for the 
girl, aware that only the extremity of distress could thus 
have broken through the instinctive reticence of her deli- 
cate mind. “ You prate — dream of devotion, like other 
women, whilst all the while proving theirs a mere toy that 
breaks in the using.” 

“ You can say that — you — and to me,” said Bertha, in- 
censed afresh. 

“ I, to you,” said Marcia, “ or to any one I saw ena- 
mored of a word, an idea — cheating themselves as to its 
real significance. . How well do you love him, Bertha? 

“ You know I would die for him.” 

“Is that all?” said Marcia drearily. “Few of the 
dead raised to life again would be thankful for the gift. 
Life is not a prize, a pleasure-bringing thing. Look at me. 
What is it to me but an everlasting pain ; a remembrance, 
a sorrow nothing can kill or cure. It is killing me, I 

think, sometimes ; but it may not be so 

it works so slowly. But it has taken my life — I do not 
care — I have nothing to hope or to dread, for myself. But 
you, Bertha, you do wrong to abandon the ground, what- 
ever your position may prove. Have a better regard for 
yourself, for him for whom you say you have some affec- 
tion.” 


FAMOUS OR INFA3iOUS. 


273 


Bertha, bewildered, exasperated, tried to speak, but was 
drawn to listen instead. Marcia’s gaze was steady, com- 
manding, pitying almost. 

“ Because you do not stand with him as you thought, 
you throw up the game as lost. What possession of 
worth was ever won so — won to keep ? Did you expect 
to win more by a moment’s look than a moment’s love ? 
Consider who you are. Remember you hold in your 
hands the welfare of his life.” 

Not I,” said Bertha, with dreary conviction. 

“ You, his constant companion. Do you count the life 
before you a failure because it is not to be made up of 
gratified self-love ? As if it could succeed at any less 
price than that of absolute self-surrender, unregarding of 
return or reward ! Did you take Wilfrid Carroll for a 
saint, or philosopher, ora perfect lover? Do you sup- 
pose his or any man’s faith is to be secured by fair looks 
and smiles and kind words ? ” 

“ He was not always so,” said Bertha. “ That is your 
work. His mind is shaken and wasted. Only weeds will 
grow there now.” 

Marcia regarded her scornfully. 

“ Certainly, Bertha,” she said, “ you should never have 
married him, never have undertaken such a part, just to 
shrink from its fulfilment. He has not changed ; he is 
what he was from the beginning — what all but one or two 
perhaps are — one whose best gifts have the most blighting 
infirmities for their shadow. 

“ Try to turn the scale in his favor. None can help if 
not you. You are always there, hold in your hands count- 
less invisible threads that make up the texture of his life. 
But you cannot serve two masters, yourself and somebody 
else. Put aside your heart’s claims, your comfort, your 
prestige, your prominence and pleasure, except that in so 
far as he succeeds and shines, here are so many signs that 
you have succeeded in your chosen vocation. Let nothing 
repel you, no failure daunt you, and look for no return of 
service. But be assured that as time goes on, if his early 
love be a flash quickly spent, or, as you believe, an illusion 
altogether, he will value and cling to at length what is in- 
extricably associated with his peace, his pleasure, his pros- 
perity, as once he loved me. This should be enough. 
There is nothing more.” 

18 


274 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


Bertha hid her face. The rush of personal feeling had 
been checked and diverted, her thoughts carried back to 
the terrible enigma of the past. 

“ Marcia, Marcia ! ” she cried, in a smothered voice of 
retrospective and unspeakable reproach. 

“ Hush,” said Marcia inaudibly. Looking up, Bertha 
saw in her face what seemed to shrink her own trial, keen 
as it was, into insignificance. Marcia’s was beyond sym- 
pathy, pity, lamenting, or the shadow of consolation, or 
hope, or healing — like some one mortally stricken, doomed, 
for all the physicians, all the friends can do. 

“ Never think of me,” she said. “ What I did, I take 
upon myself. Let us speak of you. There is no evil that 
cannot be mitigated, no peril that cannot be met or avert- 
ed. Hope is everywhere, except where death has passed. 

“I shall never see you again, Bertha,” she said. “It 
would be a mockery, after what you have told me, to talk 
to you of happiness — I can and do wish you success. But 
the path of roses has never been found ; least of all in the 
path of a woman’s love.” 

“ How long will they continue to show us Love as a 
rosy angel, a thing of pleasure and of light. It should 
rather be in the image of a Christ, miracle-working, yes, 
but crucified and crowned with thorns. It can make the 
way of life a long martyrdom, and death the only deliverer.” 

“ Good-bye, Bertha,” she ended faintly. “ Your task is 
to efface my presence from his memory, if it really lingers. 
You are young, you love him, you should succeed.” 

“ Could another ever expel Sundorne’s from yours ? ” 

“ It is hate you have to deal with,” she said, “ as violent 
sometimes as love, but too bitter a passion to be willingly 
cherished. Mine I bear with me. It is my torture, but 
my life as well, and must hold me till the day, near or 
distant, when the same grave shall cover us both.” 

Marcia turned away, and Bertha stood still watching 
her figure with a fascinated attention, as it descended the 
hill, passed into the house, and the door was shut 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS, 


275 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

CONCLUSION. 

It was striking eight when, half an hour afterwards, Dr. 
Blake came into the passage to meet Bertha, who had 
knocked at the door. 

“ You are late," he said, “ but I am glad of it. Have 
you rested ? ” 

“Yes,” said Bertha. “ How is he? ” 

“Wretchedly ill ; but less so than was to be expected. 
Come in. He was asking for you.” 

“ For me ? ” she said, with a touch of gladness. 

“ Yes, he is himself again ; his brain clear by com- 
parison. Go in and sit there till I come. He has only 
the most confused recollection of anything that took place 
yesterday evening. He asked me, and I told him that he 
came home ill, and foolishly took an overdose of narcotic 
sufficient to kill a rhinoceros. He will suffer for it so 
much to-day that I shall not lecture him. I leave that to 
you.” 

Bertha went in. His increasedly haggard appearance 
and pallor were spectral, but that he was in his right mind 
his expressive glance of disconsolate appeal showed, as she 
came up and arranged the pillows, and at a sign from him 
bathed his temples with some cunning liquid decocted by 
Robert for the purpose. 

“ I am giving you a lot of trouble already,” he said 
lamentably, but with a half-humorous smile. “ Oh, Ber- 
tha, you must be thinking you have made a wretched 
bargain.” 

The words smote her soft heart like a reproach, though 
nothing was farther from his thoughts. Indeed he felt too 
ill, too stupid to think, though too exhausted to fret and 
storm. “ My brother holds out a nice prospect of my 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


276 

being tied down here for the next three or four days,” he 
added. 

“You must be well again for Southampton and the 
opening night,” said Bertha. 

His eyes, which were dull, sparkled for a moment. 

“ How if I were unable to appear ? ” he said despond- 
ingly. 

“ Robert and I will take care of that,” she replied. 
“ Only this time you must be good, and not take the law 
into your own hands.” He closed his eyes, feeling sud- 
denly dizzy again, and sick unto death. 

The morning wore on. A thunderstorm broke up the 
heat and did good service. Two days of compulsory rest 
and care worked wonders ; and on the third he was per- 
mitted to start for the sea-side, with two more days to 
recruit still before him, ere professional engagements be- 
gan again. Dr. Blake, when he saw them off, said to 
Bertha, “ I leave him in safe hands, but leave him now I 
must. I fully expect to find that my wife has instituted 
proceedings aginst me in the Divorce Court for desertion 
and heaven knows what. She thought I should give him 
up when once he was married. She does not believe he 
is ill a bit. I must go and make my peace before the 
breach has grown irreparable.” 


Often, in her subsequent career, Bertha found that 
strange morning encounter with Marcia recurring to her 
memory. Like a prophecy fulfilled ; the sibyl’s prophecy 
of one who has looked upon the heights and depths of 
human nature. Her life has been a hard one, even as 
human lives go ; a life of ever-changing fears, anxieties, 
secret cares and troubles without end or number, with 
sparsely scattered bright gleams of sunshine between. It 
was no haven she had entered, but a dark and dangerous 
track. She, whom nature fitted to dwell in repose, 
lives in the storm and the whirlwind, for ease and mental 
tranquillity are forbidden her. The morrow is with Wilfrid 
ever a matter of the direst uncertainty. Still he goes on, 
keeps his position, his power to retrieve to-day by his 
marvelous instinct what his unreason forfeited yesterday. 


FAMOUS OR /^FAMOUS. 


277 


And he has her to thank for much ; her hand has helped 
to make life pleasant to him so that he does not throw it 
away ; her companionship he could not well do without ; 
her affection is a solace become as indispensable to his 
comfort as food and shelter. 

It is not the life of her fancy ; nor yet that which she 
had been drawn into supposing she might begin on the 
day when her hand touched his at the altar. And such a 
life of unconditional surrender'of your whole personality 
does not come naturally to any living creature. But she 
has made up her mind and accepted it for herself. The 
surrender is all on her side ; yet she has not lost her 
reward. 

Their existence knows no rest, ever on the move, 
shifting from place to place, from part to part. For 
the public he is still the great artist, preserving, in the 
main, his talents, with his occasional inspiration, his in- 
creasing subtlety and skill. He has his circle of adorers 
as before. Long had Bertha adored him thus, the artist 
divinity of her imagination. Now she has the other man, 
with his half-imbecile moods and ruthless freaks of tem- 
perament, his moral lapses, his violence to bear with, 
physical ills to soothe, mental flaws to supply, deformities 
to shield from society’s merciless observance. So long as 
he holds his head high among his fellows, fills a worthy 
place in the world, Bertha is content. 

The time may even come when Marcia’s name shall have 
no power to stir as of yore ; though that mutilation of his 
life can never be atoned for in this world or the next. 
But he has not gone under. Carroll has rivals — superiors 
in force and surprising ability — but for some he will always 
remain the first, the faultless player. 

Austin Day, an old man now, lives at Arden with his 
daughter. Some think he will outlive her. He and the 
children are her care. She loves them well ; but her heart, 
a mighty heart, is dead. Young Eva is her very image. 
Hope forbids the thought that this should foreshadow a 
likeness of destiny. And the family life has its brighter 
aspects. Austin Day is vernal as ever ; troops of friends 
surround them — Sundorne’s followers, fervent as the ad- 
herents of some proscribed faith or dynasty, victorious in 


278 


FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS. 


the end. Marcia is like a widowed queen ; and, withdrawn 
from the world of society and of action, the world of art 
and of thought, in which Sundorne, though dead, speaks 
on and will speak to unrisen generations, has elements of 
life in it for her too. 


THE END. 


THE STORIES AND NOVELS OF 


CHARLES KINGSLEY. 

PRINTED FROM LARGE, CLEAR TYPE, ON GOOD PAPER, UNIFORMLY 
AND TASTEFULLY BOUND. 

8 vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt, $8.00 

8 vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges, 12.00 

I. ALTON LOCKE. 

II. HEREWARD. 

III. TWO YEARS AGO. 

IV. HEROES AND POEMS. 

V. YEAST. 

VI. WESTWARD HO I 

VII. WATER BABIES, AND LADY WHY, MADAME HOW. 

VIII. HYPATIA. 

Either of the above volumes sold separately in cloth binding at ^r.oo 
each. 


RAWLINSON’S 
ANCIENT MONARCHIES. 

THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES OF THE ANCIENT EASTERN WORLD. 

Chaldea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, and the New Per- 
sian Empire. Their History, Geography, and Antiquities. Collected 
aai Illustrated from ancient and modern sources. By George Raw- 
LiNSON, M.A., Prof, of Ancient History in the University of Oxford, 
Canon of Canterbury. Complete in three large i2mo. volumes of over 
2,000 pages. Bourgeois type, leaded. With all the notes and a new and 
greatly improved index, also with the profuse and fine illustrations (over 
yooj of the English edition. 

3 vols. i2mo cloth, gilt, ..... $ 3-7 S 

3 vols. i2mo half calf or morocco, .... 6 00 

Rawlinson is one of the most learned and painstaking of authors 
who have made ancient history their province — and not less brilliant and 
readable than learned. Indeed, he stands not only peerless, but 
unapproached in the special fields covered in the above great works. 
That such learning and eloquence — such breadth and profundity of 
knowledge, as even the great scholars of a century ago sought and 
longed for in vain — can be brought to every American fireside, is the 
great marvel of modern progress, for which the deepest gratitude is 
fitting — gratitude on the part of the publishers that they are honored 
with such opportunity to serve appreciative readers, and on the part of 
readers that they can possibly possess such inestimable riches. 


JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY. PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. 



/cc^ 


WAVERLEY 

NOVELS 

BY 

SIRWALTER SCOTT 


ILLUSTRATED, PRINTED FROM LARGE, 
CLEAR TYPE, ON GOOD PAPER, AND 
UNIFORMLY AND TASTEFULLY 
BOUND. 


12 vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt, 

12 vols. i2mo. half calf, levant, 

12 vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges. 


$9.00 

15.00 

15.00 


I. BLACK DWARF, AND QUENTIN DURWARD. 

II. BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, AND CHRONICLES OF CANONGATE. 

III. HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, AND ROB ROY. 

IV. THE TALISMAN, AND IVANHOE. 

V. PEVERIL OF THE PEAK, AND THE BETROTHED. 

VI. WAVERLEY, AND WOODSTOCK. 

VII. KENILWORTH, AND ST. RONAN’S WELL. 

VIII. ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN. 

IX. THE ABBOT, AND THE MONASTERY. 

X. FORTUNES OF NIGEL, AND COUNT ROBERT OF PARIS. 

XI. RED GAUNTLET, AND THE PIRATE. 

XII. FAIR MAID OF PERTH, AND THE ANTIQUARY. 


History of Ancient Egypt 

BY 

GEO. RAWLINSON, M.A. 


PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED, PRINTED ON GOOD PAPER, FROM LARGE, 
CLEAR TYPE, AND UNIFORMLY AND TASTEFULLY BOU.ND. 

2 vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt, - - .... $2.50 

2 vols. i2mo. half crushed levant, .... 3 00 

2 vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges, - - - •3-75 


JOHN W, I.OVELL COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. 


tv. 


THE COMPLETE WORKS 

OF 

GEORG EBERS. 

PRINTED FROM NEW, CLEAR ELECTROTYPE PLATES, AND BOUND IN 
THE FOLLOWING STYLES, MAKING THREE EXCELLENT EDITIONS. 

vols. i2mo. cloih, gilt, ...... $8.75 

vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges, - - • 150D 

vols i2mo. half crushed levant, - . - - ^ 15.00 

The volumes can be had separately in cloth binding at ^^1.25 each. 

I. HOMO SUM, AND GRED OF NUREMBERG. 

11. UARDA. 

HI. BRIDE OF THE NILE. 

IV. THE EMPEROR, AND SERAPIS. 

V. EG Y PT IAN P R I N C ESS. 

VI. JOSHUA, AND THE BURGOMASTER’S WIFE. 

VII. ONLY A WORD, AND THE SISTERS. 


CHARLOTTE BRONTE’S 
COMPLETE WORKS. 

The large demand for Miss Bronte’s works in uniform sets has 
prompted the publishers to place three desirable editions on the market 
at this season. 

4 vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt top, ..... $4.00 

4 vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges, - - - 8.00 

4 vols. 1 2mo. half crushed levant, .... 8.00 

The set contains : 

I. JANE EYRE. 

II. SHIRLEY. 

III. THE PROFESSOR. 

IV. villp:tte. 

The cloth edition, gilt top, is sold separately at $1.00 per volume. 

‘•Jane Eyre ” is aLo issued separately in one volume, highly illus- 
trated from t)riginal drawings, and printed on the best coated paper 
with enamel surface Boxed, $2.50. 


JOHN \V. LOVELL COMPANY, PUBLTSIIER.S, NEW YORK. 


WASHINGTON 



IRVING S 
COLLECTED 
WORKS. 


FROM NEW PLATES, LARGE, CLEAR 
TYPE, VERY TASTEFULLY BOUND 
IN THREE DIFFERENT STYLES. 


L CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, AND TOUR OF THE PRAIRIES. 

II. TALES OF A TRAVELER, ABBOTSFORD AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY, 
BRACEBRIDGE HALL, AND WOLFERTS ROOST. 

III. SKETCH BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, HISTORY OF NEW YORK 

AND CRAYON PAPERS. * 

IV. MAHOMET, OLIVE GOLDSMITH, AND MOORISH CHRONICLES. 

V. ASTORIA, SALMAGUNDI, ADVENTURES OF CAPT. BONNEVILLE. 

VI. ALHAMBRA, CONQUESTS OF GRANADA AND SPAIN, AND SPANISH 
VOYAGES. 

VH. LIFE OF WASHINGTON. 

VIII. LIFE OF WASHINGTON. 

IX. LIFE OF WASHINGTON. 


INCLUDING LIFE OF WASHINGTON. 


9 vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt, - 
9 vols. i2mo. half crushed levant, 

9 vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges. 

• « * 

m m m 

• • « 

$9.co 

- 1350 
13-50 

WITHOUT LIFE OF 

WASHINGTON. 


6 vols. 1 2mo. cloth, gilt, 

6 vols. i2mo. half crushed levant, 

6 vols. 1 2mo. half calf, marbled edges, 

• • • 

• • • 

$6.00 
• 9.00 

9,00 

IRVING’S LIFE OF 

WASHINGTON. 


3 vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt, 

3 vols. i2mo. half crushed levant, 

3 vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges, 

m m m 

» m m 

• • • 

$3.00 

4-50 
4 50 


JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK 


GOLDSMITH’S 
COMPLETE WORKS. 

NEW EDITION WITH COPIOUS NOTES BY JAMES PRIOR. 

FOUR VIGNETTES FROM STEEL PLATES. 

4 vols. 1 2mo. cloth, gilt, - - - - - - $5 oo 

4 vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges, • . . S.oo 


WORKS OF 

MARY CECIL HAY. 

FROM LARGE, CLEAR TYPE, ON GOOD PAPER, AND UNIFORMLY AND 

HANDSOMELY BOUND. 

9 vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt, ------ ^^9.00 

9 vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges. - - - - ^3-5^ 

I. OLD MYDDLETON’S MONEY. 

II. squire’s legacy. 

VICTOR and vanquished. 

DARK INHERITANCE. 

ARUNDEL MOTTO. 

UNDER THE WILL AND UNDER LIFE’S KEY. 

Dorothy’s venture. 

A wicked GIRL. 

Nora’s love test. 

BERENDA YORKE. 

VII. F'OR HER DEAR SAKE, 
i HIDDEN PERILS. 

■ / MY FIRST OFFER. 

( LESTER’S SECRET. 

" * ( BACK TO THE OLD HOME. 

Either of the above volumes sold separately in cloth binding. 

SIR ARTHUR HELP’S 
FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 

PRINTED FROM LARGE, CLEAR TYPE, ON GOOD PAPER. 

4 vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt, . . . . . ^5.00 

4 vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges, - . - . 9.00 



JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. 



LOVELL’S EDITION 


CHARLES 

DICKENS 

COMPLETE 

WORKS 

S, ILLUSTRATED. 


1 


TEN VOLUME EDITION. 

Popular cloth, 1 2mo., ^^6.7 5 

I. BLEAK HOUSE, AND CHILD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

II. DAVID COPPERFIELD, AND CHRISTMAS BOOK. 

III. DOMBEY Si SON, AND UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

IV. PICKWICK PAPERS, AND SKETCHES BY BOZ. 

V. MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, AND CHRISTMAS STORIES 
PRINTED PIECES. 

VI. NICHOLAS- NICKLEBY, AND OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 

VII. LITTLE DORRIT, AND OLIVER TWIST. 

VIII. MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, AND AMERICAN NOTES. 

IX. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

X. BARNABY RUDGE, TALES OF TWO CITIES, AND HARD TIMES. 


SIX VOLUME EDITION. 

Popular cloth, 1 2mo., ------ ^'4-5^' 

1 . DAVID COPPERFIELD, CHRISTMAS STORIES, TALE OF TWO CUTE 
AND BARNABY RUD(;E. 

11. MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, AND NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 

III. OLIVER TWIST, REPRINTED PIECES, (;RE:AT EXPECTATION 

AMERICAN NOTES, AND BLEAK HOUSE. 

IV. PICKWICK PAPERS, SKETCHES BY BOZ, PICTURES FROM ll 

AND HARD TIMES. 

V. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, AND Lin LE DORRIT. 

VI. DOMBEY & SON, OLD CURIOSITY SHOP, EDWIN DROOD, - > 
UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

See catalogue for finer editions in fifceen volumes. 


JOHN W. I.OVELI, COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. 




LORD (DISRAELI) 
BEACONSFIELD’S WORKS 


TWO HANDSOME EDITIONS. 


THIS IS THE ONLY COMPLETE EDITION OF LORD BEACONSFIKLD’S WORKS. 
PRINTED FROM NEW ELECTROTYPE PLATES. 


vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt, 

vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges, 


$g.oo 

16.00 


I. CONIGSBY, AND TANCRED. 

11. SYBIL, AND BEACONSFIELD’S LIFE. 

III. VIVIAN GRAY. 

IV. VENETIA, AND THE RISE OF ISKANDER. 

V. ENDYMTON, AND MIRIAM ALROY. 

VI. LOTHAIR, AND CONTARINI FLEMING. 

VII. HENRIETTA TEMPLE, AND THE YOUNG DUKE. 


DANTE’S 

COMPLETE WORKS. 


IN THREE VOLUMES. 

TWO EDITIONS, BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED. 


3 vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt, 

3 vols. i2mo. half calf, marbled edges, 


$ 3-00 

6.00 


I. PURGATORY. 


11. INFERNO. 


III. PARADISE. 


Translated from the original by the Rev. Henry Francis Cary, M.A. 
Illustrated with designs of Gustave Dore, with critical and explanatory 
notes. 


JOHN W. LOVELL (’OMPANV, PULLI SHER.*^, NEW YORK. 


LORD LYTTON’S 
COMPLETE 
WORKS. 

PRINTED FROM ENTIRELY NEW ELECTRO- 
TYPE PLATES HANDSOMELY BOUND 
IN THREE DIFFERENT STYLES. 

This is the most desirable edition of the 
writings of this celebrated and favorite 
author. 

THIRTEEN VOLUMES. 

13 vols. i2mo. cloth, gilt, . . - . . $13.00 

13 vols. i2mo. half crushed levant, .... 19.50 

13 vols. i2mo. half calf, mart)led edges, - - - ^9 50 

1 . LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 

11. STRANGE STORY. 

HI. LAST OF THE BARONS. 

IV. PARISIANS 

V. NIGHT AND MORNING. 

VI. CAXTON. 

VII. DEVEREUX. 

VIII. KEN ELM CH I LLINGLY. 

IX. WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT? 

X. PELHAM. 

XI. ERNEST MALTRAVERS. 

XII. PAUL CLIFFORD. 

XIII. MY NOVEL. 

A finer library edition is also published in extra cloth, gilt top, and 
extra half calf. 



HUME’S 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

COMPLETE IN SIX VOLUMES. . 

GOOD PAPER, CLEAR TYPE, HANDSOMELY BOUND IN THE 

FOLLOWING styles: 

6 vols. cloth, gilt, ....... I4.00 

6 vols. half crushed levant, - - - - - 7 50 

6 vo’s half calf calf, marbled edges, - - - - 7 50 


JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK- 


63. A VERr Strange Family. By F. W. Robinson 30 

64. The Kilburns. By Annie Thomas 30 

65. The Firm OP Girdle-stone. By A. Conan Doyle .50 

66. In Her Earliest Youth. By Tasma 50 

67. The Lady Egeria. By J- B. Harwood .50 

68. A True Friend. By Adeline Sergeant 50 

69. The Little Chatelaine. By The Earl of Desart 50 

70. Children OP To-Morrow. By William Sharp 30 

71. The Haunted Fountain and Hetty’s Revenge. By Katl arine S. 

Macquoid 30 

72. A Daughter’s Sacrifice. By F. C. Philips and Percy Fendall 50 

73. Hauntings. By Vernon Lee 50 

74. A Smuggler’s Secret. By Frank Barrett 50 

75. Kestell op Greystone. By Esme Stuart 50 

76. The Talking Image op TJrer. By Franz Hartmann, ;m.D 50 

77. A Scarlet Sin. By Florence Marryatt 50 

78. By Order op the Czar. By Joseph Hatton 50 

79. The Sin OP JoosT Avelingh. By Maarten Maarlcns 50 

80. A Born Coquette. By “The Duchess” 50 

81. The Burnt Million. By James Payn 50 

82. A Womam’s Heart. By Mrs. Alexander 50 

83. Syrian. By Ouida 50 

84. The Rival 'P i.iNCEss. By Justin McCarthy and Mrs. C. Pracd 50 

&5. Blindfold. By Florence Marryatt 50 

86. The Parting op the Ways. By Betham-Edwards 50 

87. The Failure op Elisabeth. By E. Frances Poynter 50 

88. Eli’s Children. By George Manville Fenn 50 

89. The Bishop’s Bible. By David Christie Murray and Henry Hermann 50 

90. April’s Lady. By “ The Duchess.” 50 

91. Violet Vyvian, M. F. H. By May Crommelin .50 

92. A Woman OP THE World. By F. Mabel Robinson 50 

93. The Baffled Conspirators. By W. E. Norris .50 

94. Strange Crimes. By William Westall 50 

95. Dishonoured. By Theo. Gift 50 

96. The Mystery Op M. Felix. By B. L. Far jeon 50 

97. With Essex in Ireland. By Hon. Emily Lawless 50 

98. Soldiers Three AND Other Stories. By Rudyard Kipling 5)0 

99. Whose WAS THE Hand? By M. E. Braddon .50 

100. The Blind Musician. By Stepniak and William Westall 50 

101. The House ON the Scar. By Bertha Thomas 50 

103. The Phantom Rickshaw. By Rudyard Kiplmg .50 

104. The Love op a Lady. By Annie Thomas .50 

105. How Came He Dead? By J. Fitzgerald Molloy 50 

106. The Vicomte’s Bride. By Esme Stuart : 50 

lof. A Reverend Gentleman. By J. Maclaren Cobban 50 

108. Notes FROM THE ‘ New.s.’ By James Pavn 50 

109. The Keeper OP THE Keys. By F. W. R ibinson 50 

110. The Scudamores. By F. C. Philips and C. J. Wills 50 

111. The Confessions OP A Woman. By Mabel Collins 50 

112. Sowing the Wind. By E. Lynn Linton 50 

114. Margaret Byng. By F. C. Philips 50 

115 For One and the World. By M. Betham-Edwards 50 

116. Princess Sunshine. By Mrs. J. H. Riddell 50 

117. Sloane Square Scandal. By Annie Thomas '. 50 

118. The Night op 3rd ult. By il. F. Wood 50 

119. ^^uiTE Another Story. By Jean Ingelow 50 

120. Heart op Gold. By L. T. Meade 50 

121. The Word AND THE Will. By James Payn 50 

122. Dumps. By Mrs. Louisa Parr 50 

123. The Black Box Murder 50 

124. The Great Mill St. Mystery. By Adeline ^argeant 50 

125. Between Life and Death. By Frank Barrett 50 

126. Name and Fame. By Adeline Sargeant and Ewing Lester 50 

1^ Dramas OP Life. By George R. Sims 50 

128. Lover OR Friend? By Rosa Nouebette Carey 50 

129. Famous OR Infamous. By Bertha Thomas 50 

130. The House op Halliwell. By Mrs. H. F. Wood 50 

131. Rufpino. By Ouida 50 

132. Alas. By Rhoda Broughton 50 


Any of the above sent postpaid on receipt of price, by the publishers, 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY, 

SUCCESSORS TO 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 

142 TO 150 WORTH STREET, NEW YORK, 


Co LCATE'S 












i 


k » 



» 








i . 




1 



I 





•» 


I 


p 

« 

i 

$ 




I « 


4 ^ 1 ';. • 






^ 0 ^ 



.V • 

.Vf a. r/v ^ 

- vw.* 

1 ,0^ ^ *' i s'' '^1 ^ 0 • * 

0 N ° ^ ^ 

°/ ^ .<'v If C' \' s- 

' a"^ ' »• R * 

- '' 1 ^ 4 ^ “ ' 

'b ^ 


"'oo^ 


|)| = %/ 

Ws ^,lp 

«. S '' v'"'^ ^ 0 ,».■*' ,0 *^ '^ / * * S ' 

C^ ~ ” •»• V = >?• 




0 N « ^ 

. v> ^ ^ ^ > 

® 




* - V 

^ O V 

O ^ 0 * jL ^ . 0 ^ X 'y . 

, 'b. ,0'^ c ” " '■■ . ■"<?;, 

\p C,« » cr^v ^ 

- '’^. .-i' 

tf ^ <t '* 


■\<.°'\..,''°//»o.o’' ,^^^■ . .. %y 

.v^ ^ f^> % - a'^' 




* 

•'/* 

I, 

i 2 , -P 


,v 




.J^‘ 

*> .v^^ .jr 




.V ' ^ "'*^^i>‘Ji^ X ' ■ A 4 o' 

«^: 'oo' .'•'■'SfM'. "'■^ >•' .' 

> = .,-1 <■ '>f‘MMS * !,o o, , ' 


^.' *4 

' . r< ^ * 





% °A"^#%^4' .V«'' ■'^' •4''<S^4* 

^ ' 1' • i\' "’^\<f c'‘'‘'^ > '■% ' * * ' '/' , 





